At the battle of Mons Graupius the Roman army led by Governor Agricola destroys the Caledonian confederation that has formed to oppose the Roman invasion.In the aftermath of the battle a Caledonian boy reveals a secret that has the potential to change Roman strategy in the north forever.Marcus, an auxiliary Roman cavalry soldier is ordered to investigate andpromptly disappears into the remote trackless wastes of the north.In Rome his estranged father and retired Legionary, Corbulo sets out to find his only son and bring him home. So starts an adventure that will take Corbulo to the remotest parts of Caledonia and plunge him into the low intensity conflict that is raging between the scattered Caledonian war bands and the Roman forts and garrisons of Agricola's occupying army. Corbulo will need all his wits, courage and experience to fend off hostile and proud Barbarian warriors, a gang of murderous mercenaries and the lure of a dazzling prize."

    Speesh Reads Review. The North: 937AD - Three years have passed since the English king Athelstan bribed treacherous jarls to take Erik’s half-brother as king in Norway. Forced from his kingdom, Erik Bloodaxe returns to the Viking ways of his youth. Warlords are driven from Danish lands, Saxony burns, and Dublin falls to a brutal assault before the prow beasts of Erik’s fleet turn south to stalk the seas off Al-Andalus. As Erik’s reputation as a battle winner spreads his sons grow to manhood, and together they carve a new kingdom to rule from the islands which gird Britain’s north-west. But Bloodaxe is not alone in suffering the Imperial ambitions of the southern English, and when a half-remembered figure leads a Northumbrian deputation to the king’s Orkney fastness, events are set in motion which will lure Erik south to face his greatest test. The Raven and the Cross continues the turbulent story of Erik Haraldsson, a legendary king of the Viking Age. PRAISE FOR BOOK ONE - BLOODAXE This is historical fiction as it’s meant to be written…a writer at the peak of his craft. THE REVIEW Splendidly impressive, confident, and rich in incident and historical detail. SPEESH READS Exhilarating. HOOVER BOOK REVIEWS

    

    It is a great achievement but comes at great cost. His ties of comradeship with his oldest friend, Tribune Lucius “Boxer” Longius, are beginning to weaken. His rank in the legion allows him to take his full part in councils of war but will anyone listen to him? The question for Otto Longius is, has he become a true Roman and will he be accepted on an equal footing with his brother officers? An uprising by the Marcomanni of eastern Germany sets the Rhine borders alight. A prolonged siege and a mission for the Emperor Augustus test his courage and loyalty to the limit. Then a chance meeting throws his belief in his own fate into doubt. Otto must confront a formidable enemy and decide once and for all on his true path.

    A battle for power among Frankish warlords leads to a mass exodus across the Rhine... All the while, Marcus Aurelius' Roman army pushes further north, changing everything. These three events meet in a cataclysm that changes the course of history. In the background, the aging witch Chlotsuintha predicts it all. Or is she the one pulling the strings to shape her people's future?When Sextus escapes Rome with a pocketful of gold and a knife, how could he even have dreamt of what the fates might have in store for him?Pursued by Roman soldiers for the murder of his master, Sextus enlists the help of a retired gladiator, and falls in love with the gladiator's niece. An invading German army drives them further north, where Sextus discovers his true birthright, and his real name - Galdir. He becomes caught up in a bitter feud as one of the heirs of a dead Frankish warlord; but the blood feud must be put aside when the Romans invade and besiege the Frankish capital.'Galdir' is enthralling Roman fiction - a tale of love, brutal battles and conflict, in which a mystical prophecy winds its way through an epic saga of struggle against Rome, and the consequences of resistance by the Frankish people, its Warlord and its witches.

    He hopes to find a safe refuge in the south-west near Durnovaria, where he believes his dead mother’s kinfolk might be found. Arriving in the area, Ambrosius finds a small, abandoned settlement where his company can take shelter for the night before moving on to the town of Vindocladia – just north of Durnovaria. But Vortigern has put the word out: a high blood price will be paid to anyone who captures Ambrosius; and there are many who would take up the challenge… This story was first written in March and April 2020 as a contribution to Authors Without Borders, set up by distinguished author Ben Kane, as a means of providing some free stories online in first ‘lockdown’ during the Coronavirus Pandemic. It was written in 25 daily instalments, but has now been assembled and re-edited into a complete narrative.

    

    Grahame in this work. Merriman is plunged headlong into the world of espionage and when Grahame is seriously wounded it falls to Merriman to carry on the investigation.Young James Merriman must keep all his wits about him to foil these plans especially when his adversary is revealed to be an exceptional French agent Henri Moreau who hopes that by helping the Irish to throw off the English yoke, France will be able to use Irish ports from which to attack England.

    Culley does an artful job of piecing together a story line that parallels what is known. Strong writing of the characters and a good dose of action and intrigue make a worthy read. H A Culley has long been a favourite of mine and this book does not disappoint. Really enjoyed this series. The books skip along at a good pace. The characters both real and fictional are brought to life in medieval Britain. ABOUT THE BOOK This novel follows on from H A Culley's successful series about the Anglo-Saxon Kings of Northumbria Many will have heard of Bernard Cornwall’s hero, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, but what of the real Uhtred? He was an Anglo-Saxon noble of the tenth and eleventh century who became Earl of Northumbria. This novel is based on Uhtred’s life. In the late tenth century Northumbria was surrounded by potential enemies: the Scots to the North, the Danes in the South of the region and Viking raiders from across the North Sea. Uhtred, the elder son of the Earl of Bernicia, fights and wins his first battle against a horde of Norsemen when he is fourteen and continues to face external enemies throughout his life. However, he has to contend with enemies within his own family as well. His father is jealous of his success and disowns him and his younger brother wants him dead so that he can succeed to the earldom. He survives several attempts on his life but then the Scots invade and besiege Durham, where Uhtred has left his wife and child believing it to be a place of safety. He must unite the disparate parts of Northumbria under his leadership if he is to stand any chance of defeating the Scots invaders and so save his family. Meanwhile, across the sea Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark and Norway, and his son Cnut make plans to invade Northumbria as a prelude to seizing the English throne.

    Guided by the hand of fate, they become embroiled in a struggle for tribal dominance which soon escalates to a quest fueled by greed, revenge and desire.Meanwhile, in the lands of the Empire, the Romans continue their designing and incite the tribes to take up the sword against their fellow barbarians, drawing the Heruli into a conflict that could spell their demise.But for the tribes to prosper, Rome has to endure. Ragnar and his companions have to outwit and outfight the Heruli’s ancient enemies to keep the Empire from falling into the hands of the conniving Goths.Ragnar faces overwhelming odds, but the gods have ordained it long before. In the fires of destruction, a new power is being forged – one which is destined to conquer all.

    . .It's 1685 and after the victory of Sedgemoor by King James II's men and the Bloody Assizes that followed, the British Isles faces an uneasy time. Many powerful men have grown tired of Catholic James's brutal, autocratic rule and seek to invite William, the Protestant Prince of Orange, to seize the thrones of the Three Kingdoms.When Lieutenant Holcroft Blood, a brilliant but unusual gunnery officer in His Majesty's Ordnance, discovers that a sinister French agent, known only by his code name Narrey, has landed on English soil, he discovers a plan that could threaten the stability of the nation even further.While revolution brews in the gentlemen's clubs of London, Holcroft faces a deadly choice - fight for his king, or fight for his friends.Every decision has a consequence - would you be willing to pay the price?

    To Hold the Throne breathes life into the extraordinary story of King Herod the Great and Mariamne, the last Maccabee Princess, told in alternating points of view. Fueled by shifting political tides in Rome, the Triumvir Marc Antony disrupts the longstanding Maccabee Dynasty of Judea when he crowns Mariamne's new husband, Herod the Great, as King, setting off a firestorm of power-grabbing, betrayal, and tragedy in the quest for the ultimate prize: the throne. Mariamne never surrenders her belief that her brother Aris, scion of the royal line descending from King David, is the rightful King of Judea. She wrestles with her conscience and with family expectations about how far she is willing to go to oust her husband the king, who loves her with great passion even as he grows increasingly paranoid about her fidelity and suspicious of her disloyalty. When a Maccabee family member is found murdered, Mariamne is thrown into a whirlwind of accusations and terror.

    The Crusaders and Mamluks have recently signed a peace treaty when Peter Longsword, an orphan raised in a monastery, is caught in the storm of an assassination attempt on the royal Crusader. When he saves the life of the crown prince of England on his first day as a guard in the royal household, Peter is drawn irreversibly into a deep plot to discover who ordered the assassination and why.Peter encounters knights, mercenaries, infidels, and nobility and he learns about treachery, love, and loyalty in his journey toward the truth of his own origins as well as the truth of the murder attempt. With the help of his new friends, Peter will ride to the edge of the realm to prove the strength of his bloodline. Enemies will unite and new alliances will be forged in the struggle for power and peace. Longsword shows you the world of sword brothers' bravery and the power of friendship.

    it is the story of Wolf, a young Pannonian warrior who joins the Roman army and ends up a Decurion fighting for his life against Boudicca and her Iceni rebels. It follows the early days of the auxiliary cavalry and introduces the reader to many of the characters from the later books. Filled with battles and intrigue it is a journey across the Roman Empire in the early days of the first century. This is the prequel to the Sword of Cartimandua series of novels.

    The Roman Republic, or what remains of it, is in turmoil after the assassination of Julius Caesar. Powerful men vie for supremacy in the vacuum created by Caesar's death. Marcus Antonius, Octavius Caesar, and Marcus Lepidus form a ruling junta known as the Triumvirate. They are pitted against the assassins of Caesar, who call themselves the Liberators. Far to the north, on the German frontier, an obscure tribe raids the Roman province of Gaul. Meet Alderic, a towering young man out to prove himself on his first raid with the veteran warriors. A cohort of Roman legionnaires is waiting to ambush the German raiders, who are no match for the highly disciplined and armored legionnaires. It ends devastatingly for the Germans. Most are killed, but a few, including Alderic, survive. He is spared and sold to a gladiatorial school in Rome. Alderic's fate is intertwined with the Roman power struggle. In a series of improbable events, he is forced to flee Rome with the Triumvirate's men in hot pursuit. Running for his life, he heads to northern Italy. Here, he accidentally stumbles into a Roman army encampment, which is eager for new recruits to fill the ranks for the upcoming civil war. Alderic unwittingly enlists in the Fifteenth legion. He is now Artorus, no longer known as Alderic. Soon, he finds himself heading to Greece with his newfound comrades-in-arms to fight for the Triumvirate, the very forces that tried to kill him just months ago. Alderic not only finds an implausible destiny but shapes the future of the Roman Empire.