Brenda Jagger was born in 1936 in Yorkshire. She worked at various jobs, and married, and had 3 daughters. For many years she worked as a probation officer, dealing with young girls.
She began to get novels published in the late 1970s. Her first was Antonia, set in the early Roman Empire. The next was Daughter of Aphrodite, which is also set in the Roman Empire. Her heroine in this novel is Danae, who is the daughter of a Greek actor, born in poverty, who becomes a dancing girl and then a prostitute to support her young sister and brothers. She works hard, learns to become ladylike and serves as a listening ear for the upper class politicians who are fighting for power. One of her brothers becomes a poet, the other Dion is a chariot racer. Chariot races were the favourite sports of the masses in Rome, with the population adoring them and betting on them like football teams. Dion is injured in an accident and loses a leg but Danae manages to help him to survive. She becomes the mistress of Drusus, the son of the Emperor Tiberius, who is old and said to be dying. Danae makes a good living and invests in several businesses and ends by falling in love with another charioteer, who has been injured but who will recover.
After these 2 Roman novels which I enjoy Jagger wrote several other novels, set in Victorian and 20th Century England, especially in Yorkshire. She won awards and her novels did very well but she died tragically early in 1986. I like her works but prefer the Roman ones.
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