ALL DONE......

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All four novels are now available either as complete online reads, or to download in PDF.

They all concern themselves with life in the first century Roman empire. Although they were written as an attempt at Romance, they do not fit the criteria for the dedicated Romance reader, who will find them slower and more complicated than stories published by HM&B et al. Lovers of Historical ficiton will find them light on detail and too focussed on relationships.

Ah well.

Many thanks to readers and to the keepers of the fiction directories who help connect readers with great online fiction.

Complete online novel at PETRA
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BOOK 4 AD120

Aya grew as a filthy scavenger, trailing the Bedouin caravans that crossed the Nafud wastes and the Rub’ al Khali. Bought from the arena as a young man, his new life as Sethos, the adopted son of a wealthy Roman merchant, is stained by the stigma of his past.

Jaida and her sisters were raised in luxurious slavery, destined to be the virgin oracles of Isis at provincial temples throughout the empire. When the fall of a dice brings the girls’ future into question, it is Seth who must define freedom and slavery, life or liberty – for himself and for them.

He has money, strength and cunning, and she has no more than her faith.

The gods are fickle. When they move among men, they all have their own pieces in play, some fuelled by anger, greed and vengeance.

But Isis is Queen of Heaven - Goddess of ten thousand names; she is every goddess. For every god of stone and wood, she is their mother, their sister, their lover and their nemesis.

And somewhere she will have an accounting....



Complete online novel at BRITANNIA
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BOOK ONE AD78


Maia and her step-brother Cilo were raised in an opulent villa in the Seine Valley, by their vile step-mother.

Cilo enlists in the army in Britannia at fifteen.

Lucius, Luc, is commander of an auxiliary cavalry unit of Legio XX, Valeria Victrix. The son of a Caledonian mercenary who joined Rome, he and his four brothers are renowned soldiers of great ability and bravery.

At 25 he has served ten years, is looking at another fifteen, and has had enough of killing. Exhausted and battle fatigued after the brutal AD77 Cambrian campaign, he has been weighing up his chances of survival as a deserter.

Maia is married off to her stepbrother, but is abandoned again when he returns to his post. Seizing her chance to escape, she joins an exclusive group of travelling priestesses on their way to Britannia. But they can only take her some of the way, and she finds herself moving through a complex web of lies and deceptions, where everyone she meets has a separate agenda.

If she can only trust Lucius, he can take her to her husband.

Everything she knows about the world will change, if she can survive the journey.




Complete online novel available at HISPANIA
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BOOK TWO - AD82.


First century Spain was divided into three provinces: Lusitania and Baetica in the south, and Tarraconensis in the north. While the southern and central areas, once subdued, were quickly Romanized, the northern areas, up into the Pyrenees, maintained a ‘seething’ peace.

Although the siege of Numantia in 133BC marked the end of organized resistance to Rome, the Celtiberian tribes maintained their heritage of warrior elites, and their hatred of Rome. They accepted the comforts, infrastructure and the benefits of Empire, while remaining independent tribal city-states under the control of noble families.

The heroine, Marella is the daughter of one such family. The Lusones were one of the most powerful tribes in northern Hispania, with their power centred in Caesaraugusta. To the west, the most influential family was the Arevaci. Their base was the tribal capital of Numantia, a place as revered in Spanish history as Masada in the Holy Lands, and for much the same reason.

Falsely accused by a vile and corrupt Druidic high priest, she is set to be executed. Her rescuer is Marcus, a Roman deserter from Britannia who has made his home in the Gallego valley above Caesaraugusta.

Finding no purpose in the life he leads, bored and frustrated, he relishes the chance to face the challenges that come with saving the life of this young noblewoman. Her best chance of survival lies in travelling across the province to Numantia, and her only chance of survival is to do that with Marc.

Somehow they must stay ahead of High Priest Leucetius and the priests of a Romanised and corrupted temple; Marella's noble brother Taran and his standing army; and Rome herself.

Away from the capital, the Roman world was a complex, sometimes bloody blend and clash of cultures. The people were as many and varied as they are today, not stereotypical Roman ladies and gents consumed by the politics of Caesar's court.

Hispania is a glimpse into the less well known lives of Rome.




Complete online novel available at CALEDONIA
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BOOK THREE AD84


By AD83 the Romans in Caledonia held a line of glen-blocking forts, (now known as the Gask Ridge forts, from Glasgow to Perth) and the three active legions, XXth, IXth and IInd, were split along this defensive line.

Calgacus was one of a number of first century Pictish barons; part of a landed class in northern Celt society with access to slaves, money, men and arms. He fixed on the plan to unify the Caledonian Celtic tribes against Rome, beginning with the tribes of the Forth-Clyde area.

After a crushing defeat at a fort along the Roman line, Calgacus tried the following year to bring in all the Pictish tribes, and rallied an army of perhaps sixty thousand men (and women) for the Battle of Mons Graupius.

Once Calgacus' lover, Eirbrin has been sent north to her family lands on the Gleann Mor above Inbhir Nis. Fanatical dedication to the fight to free Caledonia from Rome has been her only way to deal with the deep and disabling shames of her past.

When she meets Antony she believes she has found a mystic, a man of power who can help her to overcome the demons of guilt and shame.

He is a spy, a Natione - native Britons conscripted to the Roman auxiliary army - used extensively by Agricola in the Caledonian wars, where the Celt's guerrilla tactics and harsh terrain made success near to impossible.

Everything about him should warn Brin of his deception, but her longing to atone, her need to be free of shame, and her growing desire for him allow her to deny or justify any doubts that come.

To him, she should be no more than an enemy; and with her ties to the leader of the Picts, a formidable source of information. But as they move through the Caledonian midlands toward the gathering battle, her beauty and courage, her innocence and the unfaltering faith she places in him draw him into an impossible situation.

Trapped between an irresistible love and an immovable duty, he must find a way to untangle his web of lies, or return to a life of service, to live or die alone.

Both of them should know better.

L.
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