When fifteen-year-old Cissie Brodie loses her parents to cholera, she is forced out of the family cottage & left to raise her
... Judaea in AD 46. Roman centurions Cato & Macro have been posted to Judaea for a 'hearts & minds' operation.
The Empire
London's East End, 1890
Growing up in poverty, Hester Stainsby toils day & night in the laundry room of Poplar
It's 44 AD, & Vespasian & the Second Legion are forging ahead in their campaign to seize the south-west of Britain. Macro & newly appointed centurion Cato are ordered to provide Verica, ruler of the Atrebatans, with an army. They must train his tribal levies into a force that can protect him & take on the increasingly ambitious raids that the enemy is launching. But despite the Atrebatans' official allegiance to Rome, open revolt is brewing, for many want to resist the Roman invaders. Macro & Cato must win the loyalty of the disgruntled levies
- but can they succeed whilst surviving a deadly plot to destroy both them? Macro & Cato face the greatest test of their army careers as only they stand between the destiny of Rome & bloody defeat...