As we're getting nearer to the release of Barbarian and the Throne, I thought I would offer a sneak peek at the prologue, just in case anyone was in two minds as to whether to give it a go! The book is out on August 24th, and is the fourth book in the Shadow of Rome series. I have written four blog posts covering what the book is about, so I won't go into all that again. I shall simply leave you with the words. Hope you enjoy! Prologue Rome, August, AD 410 Click. Clack. Click. The point of...

Flavius Stilicho, general of Rome — Roman historical fiction by Adam Lofthouse If you've read the previous blogs I've written in the past couple of weeks, ore indeed have read the first three books in the Shadow of Rome series, you'll know that the story is shifting. The old guard — Victorinus, Felicius — are stepping back, and a new figure is moving to the centre of the stage. Videricus is his name. A young Greuthungi warrior who could have been a king, but is instead a soldier in the employ...

In my last post I wrote about the Battle of the Frigidus, and I promised to come back to one detail that has stuck with me ever since I first read about it — the wind. Because the more you look at the Frigidus, the more you realise that the deciding factor on the second day of battle wasn't a general or a legion or a clever bit of tactics. It was the weather. A wind so violent that men on both sides believed a god had sent it. That wind still blows today, and it has a name: the bora. The bora...