It’s my sister’s. That’s a disclosure. I’m the proud dedicatee. That’s another. On these grounds, because I can’t work out the ethics, I won’t rate, I’ll just review.

The trio of star Romantic poets, Keats, Shelley, Byron – sort of like the Three Musketeers – with each his companion or offsider (wife, servant, friend) and – if I’m going to run with the Three Musketeers – our d’Artagnan is nothing of a poet, he’s a lieutenant in the navy, who requires their help or other input – it isn’t always assistance, at least from Byron – in a secret mission, sensitive both to the Home Office and to the lieutenant’s heart. I shan’t tell you more plot than that.

The poets are an odd lot. Except for Keats, who isn’t in the least odd and has to put up with them – particularly Byron. Byron’s my favourite character here, in spite of his dodginess. Together – they make up seven together – they try to swashbuckle, but few of them have practice; most are gentlemanly, Byron’s lordly, and when that prohibits them from action the lower classes step in, Byron’s servant Fletcher and the lieutenant who’s seen action. But they manage, ‘Seven Souls Strong’, in the end.

They face death, in different guises. Keats doesn’t cheat his death in Rome, not exactly, although he struggles for his health and for a healthy mind and hope and he succeeds. He slips along the way – he’s wonderful, he isn’t perfect. Mary Shelley, who has quietly written Frankenstein, may quietly be the pick of them. Whether the evil that they face is earthly or other-than, they dispute... they bring their poet’s answers to the question, as the death-question too has gilded answers or else the very much ungilded catacombs in Rome.

If you like unlikely heroes in speculative histfic, or want to meet Bryon, Shelley and Keats. Believe me, you want to meet Keats.