Historical Fiction Ancient History

“Cambyses was a madman. Darius was a huckster. But Cyrus was a father to us.”-Persian proverb. In the ancient world kings ruled as despots, their subjects at the mercy of their every whim. But a mule, a half-breed child of two kingdoms, was destined to rule with tolerance and the restraint of law, earning him the name of Cyrus the Great. Warned by a prophetic dream, his grandfather sought to kill him on the day of his birth. But his destiny could not be thwarted. Author J. P. Hall vividly depicts the exciting and thought-provoking life of this historic figure, drawing from such sources ...

Captured by pirates and sold to a Roman aristocrat as a sex slave, Sporus attracted the attention of no less a personage than the Emperor Nero, ruler of the known world. Would-be poet, patron of the arts, aesthete, and brutal autocrat, the Divine Nero saw in the boy a startling resemblance to the Empress Poppaea - and made him an empress as well. Suetonius, Tacitus, and other Roman historians have given tantalizing glimpses into the incredible life story of the boy who became twice an empress to two emperors, and was condemned to die in the arena by a third. In this meticulously researched ...

Peter Thornton doesn’t believe in God. Or rather, he doesn’t believe in one God. “All paths are valid,” he teaches his university students. One evening he ventures to the archaeology museum and touches an artifact recently discovered from ancient Babylon. At the touch he is transported three thousand years back in time to Old Testament Babylon. Somehow the people know him as Rim-Sin, sorcerer and high priest to the gods of Babylon. The moment he arrives he is accused of murder—a murder Rim-Sin committed—and he must run for his life. Against the backdrop of Nebuchadnezzar’s ...

Rome, 77 B.B. The corrupt Senator Dolabella is about to go on trial for his crimes. But Dolabella owns the jury. He’s hired the best lawyers in the city. And he’s very willing to use violence against those who oppose him. In all of Rome, no man dares accept the role of prosecutor—until, against all odds, an unknown twenty-three-year-old steps out to lead the case, defend the people of the city, and defy the power of the ruling elite. That lawyer’s name is Gaius Julius Caesar.

Previously published as Marduk’s Tablet What if the legend is true?Emilie Nazzaro saw her father’s obsession with an ancient Babylonian tablet lead to his betrayal and murder. Now, she’s been charged with deciphering the symbols on this centuries-old piece of clay and its legendary omen of healing power. But others are desperate to get their hands on the tablet, too, and Emilie must first separate well-meaning friends from lethal enemies.On a harrowing journey through Israel and into ancient Babylon, she uncovers the secrets surrounding her father’s death –but will she stay alive ...

An Epic Quest Across the Sands of Arabia In Part 2 of this sweeping historical adventure, a conflicted soldier must choose between his scholarly dreams and embracing a royal destiny he never wanted. General Reza leads his caravan of Persian soldiers through the ancient city of Petra, a crossroads on the incense road where secrets are traded like currency. Haunted by a birthright he has tried to escape, Reza seeks only to protect an ancient relic on the journey back to his home city of Nisa. But his father has greater plans for Reza—to lead an uprising and take his place as the rightful ...

"My God. These people really are Neanderthals!" At an archeological dig in Gibraltar, science journalist Tom Cook’s hopes and dreams are shattered in an instant by a mysterious explosion—his pregnant fiancée is missing. During the search, things go from bad to worse when Tom plunges through a time portal and into the strange and dangerous era of the Neanderthals. Can he get back, or is he stuck in the past forever? On top of figuring out how to return to the present, Tom must use his modern-day wits to fight for survival in the world of 40,000 years ago. And contend with a group of ...

An Epic Quest Across the Sands of Arabia... In Part 3 of this sweeping historical adventure, Kamillah finds herself caught between warring powers and her own heart. Traveling to Jerusalem with her band of Persian magi to find a prophesied king, Kamillah must finally confront her nemesis Zahir, a dangerous sorcerer intent on acquiring an artifact of immense power. But Kamillah and her companions soon find themselves imprisoned by Roman soldiers and facing accusations of espionage. As Kamillah works to secure their release, drawing on her royal Egyptian heritage and reputation as a sorceress,...

Plutarch’s Lives remains one of the world’s most profoundly influential literary works. Written at the beginning of the second century, it forms a brilliant social history of the ancient world. His “parallel lives” were originally presented in a series of books that gave an account of one Greek and one Roman life, followed by a comparison of the two. Volume 1 compares Theseus and Romulus, Alcibiades and Coriolanus, and Aristides and Marcus Cato, among others.

Loyalty to your people. Loyalty to Rome. Only one can remain... Centurion Faustus Valerianus has already proven his bravery and skill, marching alongside Julius Agricola for six gruelling years to conquer the north of Britain. But that was just the beginning... With Agricola back in Rome, Faustus is given a new mission: to journey to Hibernia with exiled Irish prince Tuathal Techtmar and help him reclaim his rightful throne.

The first tale in a series about life in Predynastic Egypt. Set between 5453 and 5439 BC, Daughter of the Falcon God is the story of the first farmers and herders who wandered the then-lush savannah west of the Nile valley, traveling in season to harvest wild grasses along the nearby river. Building on the nascent culture established by Aya and her band, their descendants would, millennia later, create the greatest and longest lasting civilization in the ancient world.

The story of Neferure, the Beauty of Re, caught in the struggle for control of New Kingdom Egypt between her mother, Hatshepsut, and her half-brother, Thutmose III, and the subsequent creation of the world’s first empire.

AD 916. In the Orkney Isles, a young woman flees her home to save the life of her unborn child. Eighteen years later, a witch foretells that evil from her past is reaching out again to threaten her son. Outlawed from his home in Iceland, Einar Unnsson is thrown on the mercy of his Uncle, the infamous Jarl Thorfinn 'Skull Cleaver' of Orkney. He joins forces with a Norse-Irish princess and a company of wolfskin-clad warriors to become a player in a deadly game for control of the Irish sea.

In words that might have been ripped from today's combat dispatches, Steven Pressfield, the best-selling novelist of ancient warfare, returns with a riveting historical novel that re-creates Alexander the Great's invasion of the Afghan kingdoms in 330 B.C., a campaign that eerily foreshadows the tactics, terrors, and frustrations of contemporary conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Can I save my daughter . . . and them?” Time traveler Tom Cook has settled into his prehistoric life among the Neanderthals, but it’s not without its challenges that include a burning desire to see his future-dwelling daughter, Pook, again. When a growing threat from hostile neighbors turns into an attack, an old contact from another world comes to the rescue and leads both Tom and his Neanderthal wife, Brassy, back to that future through an increasingly unstable time portal. Now, after traveling to and from two different worlds, Tom must find a way to defeat his enemies in both, ...

Isolated in a desolate corner of Algeria, Dr. Jade Asher-Reece unearthed the greatest archaeological finds of the century. As she pieces together the lost secrets of the Heroes of the Trojan War, the Hebrew Judges, and the last great Pharaoh, her excavation team is beset by the harsh environment, jealousy, and betrayal. Worse still, dangerous forces are plotting against her. Will she be able to solve the mysteries of the Bronze Age before it is too late?

Will her solitude cost her everything? For twenty years, Sophia has guarded the Lighthouse of Alexandria, alone in her task and in her heart. Her pain and loss keep her hidden and isolated, even as the elderly scholars she funds in the famed Library try to coax her into the world. But Julius Caesar and his Roman legions are bearing down on Cleopatra’s Egypt. And when a Roman centurion marches his troops into her lighthouse, endangering the city’s best scholars and their secret invention, Sophia’s peace is shattered. As the historic war erupts, tangling Sophia in its chaos, she finds ...

Titus Pullus, the hero of the 10th Legion and the Marching With Caesar series, tells his story from the very beginning of his life, starting with his relationship with his father, how his friendship with Vibius Domitius began, and how their burning ambition to join the Legions was helped by a veteran nicknamed Cyclops. Enlisting in the 10th Legion, raised in 61 B.C. by Gaius Julius Caesar, Birth of the 10th Legion recounts the first campaign ever conducted by Julius Caesar as a commander...

Second tale in a series about life in Predynastic Egypt, following Daughter of the Falcon God. Set between 4009 and 3997 BC, The Potter occurs during an era in which the Nile Valley’s Naqadian culture begins to replace the older Badarian. The story of the potter Tiaa and the trader Ankhmare ranges in location from mysterious Nabta Playa in the Western Desert to Merimda in the delta, from Badari in the middle Nile Valley to Nekhen, the mightiest settlement along the river, in the South. Tiaa and Ankhmare walk a path which leads, millennia later, to the greatest and longest lasting ...

In the year A.D. 9, three Roman Legions under Quintilius Varus were betrayed by the Germanic war chief, Arminius, and destroyed in the forest known as Teutoburger Wald. Six years later Rome is finally ready to unleash her vengeance on the barbarians. The Emperor Tiberius has sent his adopted son, Germanicus Caesar, into Germania with an army of forty-thousand legionaries. The come not on a mission of conquest, but one of annihilation. With them is a young legionary named Artorius.