The Stone Rose - Jacqueline Rayner

Jacqueline Rayner's The Stone Rose features the Doctor and Rose as played by David Tennant and Billie Piper in the hit series from BBC Television.

Whilst Rose and the Doctor are off, travelling Time and Space, saving people and fighting off bad guys and monsters, Mickey has decided to do some good on his own patch of London and he's been volunteering at the British Museum. Imagine his surprise when one day he finds a statue of Rose in the museum - a statue that is 2,000 years old. The Doctor quickly realises that this means the TARDIS will shortly be taking him and Rose to Ancient Rome, but when it does, they soon find they have more on their minds than sculpture. Whilst the Doctor gets caught up in a search for a missing boy named Optatus, Rose befriends a 16 year old girl named Vanessa who, it is claimed, knows the future - and her predictions are surprisingly accurate. But then the Doctor meets the man responsible for creating the statue of Rose that they saw at the British Museum and he is very interested in sculpting Rose. But why are his tools so well maintained, and why doesn't he have a stack of marble at hand in his studio ? The Doctor soon realises the hideous truth behind the statue of Rose - and in the meantime Rose herself learns that you have to be very careful what you wish for. The Doctor and Rose soon find themselves apparently locked into a series of pre-ordained events that ultimately lead to Rose's disappearance, and the Doctor's false imprisonment then fight for freedom in the Flavian Amphitheatre (aka the Colosseum). Also involved in this story are Roman gods with mystical powers and a very advanced piece of technology which doesn't belong to the Doctor and certainly doesn't belong in Rome in AD120 !

Author Jacqueline Rayner has a degree in Ancient History, so it's a fair bet that Ancient Rome is described with historical accuracy. This was a fun book - I especially liked the final plot twist concerning the statue of Rose, and I thought Rayner has done a good job of portraying Mickey, as well as the Doctor and Rose.

It's also possible to buy The Stone Rose Audiobook, read by David Tennant, and to buy The Stone Rose from Amazon.com.