Ancient Historical Fiction

The Aventine is full of fracturing families. Wives plot to leave their husbands, husbands plot to spend more time with their mistresses. Masters must endure slaves taking obscene liberties, while aggressive slaves are learning to ape dangerous masters. But no one wants to hire an investigator during the holiday. Albia is lumped with her own domestic stress: overexcited children and bilious guests, too many practical jokes and her magistrate husband Tiberius preoccupied with local strife.

Victory is in sight for Kivilaz and his Batavi army. The Roman army clings desperately to its remaining fortresses along the Rhine, its legions riven by dissent and mutiny, and once-loyal allies of Rome are beginning to imagine the unimaginable: freedom from the rulers who have dominated them since the time of Caesar. The four centurions - two Batavi and two Roman, men who were once comrades in arms - must find their destiny in a maze of loyalties and threats, as the blood tide of war ebbs and flows across Germania and Gaul.

Bound by destiny, Melisto and Rhaskos - Amber and Clay - never meet in the flesh. By the time they do, one of them is a ghost. But the thin line between life and death is just one boundary their unlikely friendship crosses. It takes an army of snarky gods and fearsome goddesses, slaves and masters, mothers and philosophers to help shape their story into a gorgeously distilled, symphonic tour de force.

AD 381. Five years have gone by since a Roman governor ordered the deaths of a Gothic king and his attendants at a feast in their honor. This disastrous act led to warfare in the Roman Empire and the death of the Emperor Valens. The Empire is now at peace, but the powerful brother of the murdered king has sworn revenge on the regicides, and will not rest until they are hunted down. For the eight legionaries who carried out the killings, the bloodshed is only just beginning.

It began nearly 400 years ago. The Conall clan and all their people were murdered in a surprise attack, their beloved castle and all evidence of who destroyed them burned to the ground with their bodies. In the centuries following, archaeologists searched through the ruins looking for any evidence of what or who had caused the untimely demise of such a powerful Scottish clan. All efforts were fruitless until a spell put in place by an ancient Conall ancestor finally began to work its magic.

Deep in the heart of the Upper Egyptian desert lies a forbidden village, where bands of artisans prepare the tombs of the Pharaohs. Guarded by a handful of elite soldiers, the hidden city shelters the most precious of treasures: the Stone of Light, a legendary stone of magical power. When a devious military officer schemes to infiltrate the city and capture the sacred gem, his subversive plot is thwarted by an unlikely hero: a desert wanderer who falls into a maze of treachery and betrayal, desire and danger.

Julius Caesar left his gardens to the citizens of Rome, a peaceful sanctuary across the Tiber. Now the gardens and their sacred grove are dangerous haunts, especially for women alone. 'Don't go to the Grove,' people mutter, but when her husband has to leave Rome, it falls to Albia to supervise his building project in an old grotto. Why has someone buried tattered scrolls by obscure philosophers - and does it involve a worse crime than terrible writing? Soon that puzzle is overtaken.

What Do We Know About Atlantis? lets curious young listeners dive into what we really know about the sunken city. First described by Plato, the idea of Atlantis has existed since 360 B.C.! Learn about the history of the Greek god Poseidon's relationship with the kingdom and the real research that's been done by historians and scientists who are trying to locate Atlantis. Featured in plenty of movies, books, and comics, Atlantis is still relevant in popular culture today...but does it really exist?

As famine overtakes the land, Simeon leads his brothers into Egypt to buy grain. He doesn't recognize the vengeful ruler he must bow before: Joseph, his long-lost brother, the very brother Simeon sold into slavery years ago. Now, it is the brash Simeon's turn to endure imprisonment. Only Mandisa, the handmaid who interprets the ruler's language, is his saving grace. The beautiful widow and her young son see another side of Simeon, the tenderness beneath the tough exterior. As much as he would like to, he will never be free to love them until he unshackles the chains around his own heart.

Veteran cavalry commander Marcus Flavius Victor sets out with his regiment to make what may be his final tour of the forts along Hadrian's Wall. Through a combination of military prowess, brutality and bribery, Marcus has spent 20 years keeping the savage Picts at bay. Feared by his enemies and hated by his superiors, his strength of will is the only thing that has held the disgruntled, poorly paid garrisons of the Wall in place as the failing Roman Empire's grip on Britannia weakened.

King Aethelred II, who men will one day call The Unready, rules over a land divided by the shadowy spin of his mother Queen Ælfthryth and the sprawling power of the Church. The Viking Warlord, Olaf Tryggvason smelling the Kingdoms weakness brings the vicious Jomsvikings to the Saxon coastline ravenous for war and plunder.

In the year 28 AD the people of Frisia, a previously loyal province, were suffering under the oppression of the Roman magistrate, a former Centurion named Olennius. So blinded by greed had he become that he taxed the populous well beyond their means to produce. Now impoverished and risking starvation, the Frisians did the unspeakable and sought open rebellion as their only means of survival.

His younger brother will be greater than he . . . With those words, Menashe's dreams collapse. As Yosef's eldest son, his position had seemed secure. But now Efrayim—bold, charming Efrayim, who's everything Menashe is not—is taking his place. With their people. With the pharaoh. With Jendayi, the slave Menashe loves. Efrayim, meanwhile, sees his dreams confirmed. Surely it's his destiny to unite the Egyptians and Hebrews. To marry a princess and achieve splendor surpassing that of his brother.

With the empire collapsing about him, Heraclius, the Exarch’s son, becomes the first Roman Emperor in 300 years to lead an army into battle. But this is no ordinary army: it is the Last Army, cobbled together from the bits and pieces that remain of once-great legions. Arrayed against him are the most formidable enemies Rome has ever faced: the Avar horde, the Sassanian Persian Empire intent on Rome’s annihilation, and the relentless plague that exploded under his predecessor Justinian and halved the Roman population.

Modern-day bounty hunter Bethany Bennett helps her brother track two fugitives to a forest outside of Houston, Texas. But what should have been a routine apprehension of two bail skippers spirals out of control and ends in violence. After Beth and her brother are both seriously injured, a mysterious figure suddenly looms over her. And, when the smoke clears, Beth finds herself not only in another place, but in another time.

In modern-day London, architectural historian and recovering alcoholic Annie Kendall hopes to turn her life around and restart her career by locating several long-missing pieces of ancient Judaica. Geoff Harris, an investigative reporter, is soon drawn into her quest, both by romantic interest and suspicions about the head of the Shalom Foundation, the organization sponsoring her work. He's also a dead ringer for the ghost of a monk Annie believes she has seen at the flat she is subletting in Bristol House.

Altea, una de las más brillantes discípulas de Platón, no sabe que tiene al enemigo en su propia casa y que tanto ella como el bebé que espera se encuentran en peligro. Por su parte, su amigo y maestro Platón arriesga la vida para intentar hacer realidad su gran proyecto: unir la política y la filosofía con el fin de que gobiernen la justicia y la razón, en lugar de la corrupción y la retórica vacía de los demagogos.

March, AD 80. In Rome, the Emperor Titus has announced that there will be 100 days of games to open the new Flavian amphitheatre (now known as the Colosseum). Suspecting that their friend Jonathan is not dead, as they had thought, Flavia, Nubia, and Lupus organize an invitation to Rome on the pretense of witnessing this historic event.

Tag is a medical slave, doomed to spend his life healing his master's injured gladiators. But his warrior's heart yearns to fight in the gladiator ring himself and earn enough money to win his freedom. Lucia is the daughter of Tag's owner, doomed by her father's greed to marry a much older Roman man. But she loves studying the natural world around her home in Pompeii, and lately she's been noticing some odd occurrences in the landscape: small lakes disappearing; a sulfurous smell in the air...

Motecuzoma Xocoyotzin -arquitecto, poeta versado, sacerdote ferviente, guerrero temerario, político astuto, hombre analítico e injustamente menospreciado por historiadores y novelistas- estuvo al frente del suceso más importante de la historia del continente americano; y consciente del alto riesgo que conllevaba una batalla contra un ejército invencible, por la calidad de sus armas y el avasallador número de tropas aliadas, decidió, para librar a su pueblo de una masacre, adoptar como estrategia un duelo de inteligencias contra un adversario a su altura, Hernán Cortés.