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Sword of Rome
Sword of Rome
Jul 10, 2025 7:23 AM

Author:Douglas Jackson

Sword of Rome

Bestselling author Douglas Jackson expertly brings the Roman Empire to life in this brutal and bloody historical adventure. Perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow, Ben Kane and Conn Iggulden.

Readers are loving Gaius Valerius Verrens!

"Breakneck action, vivid characters, a fresh, believable perspective, and a fabulous plot with a stunning, unexpected end. Don't want to read it yet? Are you barking mad?" - 5 STARS

"A page turner that makes you want more" - 5 STARS

"I couldn't put the book down" - 5 STARS

"A cracking read" - 5 STARS

"Hugely enjoyable" - 5 STARS

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AMIDST THE CHAOS AND CARNAGE OF CIVIL WAR, WHERE DO A HERO'S LOYALTIES LIE?

AD 68: The Emperor Nero's erratic and bloody reign is in its death throes when Gaius Valerius Verrens is dispatched to Rome on a mission that will bring it to a close. With Nero dead, the city and the Empire hold their breath, pray for peace and await the arrival of his successor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, governor of Hispania.

But they pray in vain. Galba promises stability and prosperity, but his rule begins with a massacre and ends only months later in chaos and carnage. And so starts the Year of the Four Emperors: a time of civil war which will tear Rome apart and test Valerius's skills and loyalties to their very limit.

Fortunate to survive Galba's fall, Valerius is sent on a mission by Rome's new Emperor, Otho, to persuade his old friend Vitellius to halt his armies, stop them marching in the north and therefore prevent inevitable confrontation and disruption.

In an epic adventure that will take him the length and breadth of a divided land, the one-armed Roman fights to stay alive and stave off a bloodbath as he is stalked by the most implacable enemy he has ever faced.

Gaius Valerius Verrens's adventures continue in Enemy of Rome.

Reviews

Cracking...one of our finest writers.

—— Saturday (Supp to the Scottish Daily Record)

One of the best historical novelists writing today.

—— DAILY EXPRESS

There is humour as well as tragedy in this book, besides its faint note of hope for human nature; and it is delightfully written in the now familiar Southern tradition

—— Sunday Times

Her book is lifted...into the rare company of those that linger in the memory...

—— Bookman

Unbelievably, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, has never been properly available in Britain until now - but Harper Lee's wonderful novel, first published in 1960, has been worth the wait. Sissy Spacek brings all the characters to life as young Scout Finch watches her lawyer father, Atticus, do battle for the life of a black man who's been accused of the rape of a white girl in a Deep South town steeped in ignorant prejudice. Set in the 1930s, this is a tale that will never age...

—— Kati Nicholl , Daily Express

Sissy Spacek's reading is electrifying.

—— The Guardian

Narrator Sissy Spacek's portrayal of Scout Finch is mesmerising

—— Stylist

John Niven is probably the most exciting British writer working today and Straight White Male is addictive, biting, scathing, hilarious and true. I wish I'd never read it so I could read it all again.

—— Danny Wallace

The most loveable rogue since John Self in Money. Funny as hell and moving.

—— Ian Rankin

Deliciously hyperbolic, obscenely funny, unexpectedly affecting. Niven never, ever, pulls a punch.

—— Rupert Thomson

The prose is quick, with a distant narrative voice controlling the multiple characters with such assurance that it becomes a character in itself. There are some car-crash scenes that fans of Niven’s work will be familiar with, but he carefully balances farce with emotive drama, and as Marr begins to plummet towards rock bottom, he’s left to deal with consequences that prove no one can have everything ... For pure entertainment it’s a triumph.

—— The List

It’s an incredible piece of satire, this time about the Hollywood film industry, with a protagonist easily as vile as ‘Kill your Friends’’ Stelfox … Niven created a full-on flesh-and-blood, multilayered, breathing and growing character with depth to his soul that he himself needs to uncover in equally funny and agonising steps, sucked in by his contempt and debauchery, only to find himself struggling to dig his way out of the mire of consequences and heartbreak …. Straight White Male is a novel that has ripped right through me.

—— Pattis Blog

A sharp satire.

—— Esquire

[A] page-turning satire that’s a masterclass in plate-spinning comic timing.

—— Metro

Straight White Male revisits the familiar Niven world … but this time with a more mature edge – this is a novel about family, growing up, and even love – and a smart assault on academia and the nature of literature … It’s as though Martin Amis decided after Money that being entertaining as well as smart was the way to go … Most fun.

—— David Quantick , Q Magazine

If such a thing as the anti-Hilary Mantel exists in British literature, Niven is probably it. All his stories are madcap cavalcades of disorder, violence, vomit, sex, cocaine, moral turpitude, waste matter and money …Straight White Male is more measured than its predecessors, but only in the sense that Eraserhead is more measured than Cannibal Holocaust … At no point in Straight White Male do you get bored… A kinder, gentler Niven wouldn’t be much use to anybody…Its wordview is dodgy, its execution is brutalist, and it’s much funnier than it has any right to be.

—— Sunday Business Post

[Kennedy] is a wonderfully appalling anti-hero, in the mould of Martin Amis’s John Self, but also acquires an increasingly prominent and moving backstory as the novel progresses. Fizzing with energy and full of laughs.

—— Daily Mail

belly laughs and some surprising tenderness.

—— Shortlist

There seems to be a number of books out recently about middle-aged men’s neurosis … but this book is far away and the best I’ve read on this topic. It’s hilarious … This book is funny and brilliant as it attacks the literary and film world. Don’t miss it.

—— Bookmunch

tack-sharp dialogue and [an] enviable turn of phrase…This book will make readers cry with both laughter and sadness. It’s not for the faint of heart, but man, what a yarn.

—— Press Association syndicated review

Niven really does capture the pretensions of lit-scenes outside the London loop extraordinarily well … [There is] a sense of elegy and complication that stays with you long after the final page.

—— 3AM magazine

Straight White Male is a horrid little book in lots of ways, a bleary squint into the squalid world of a deeply rancid person. Its worldview is dodgy, its execution is brutalist, and it’s much funnier than it has any right to be.

—— Sunday Business Post

John Niven’s debut, 2008’s Kill Your Friends, eviscerated the music business, and the hedonistic depths plumbed by its protagonist, the A&R man Steven Stelfox, enough to cause a mortified blush in even the brassiest reader. While maintaining the key essence of that debut – a groove of exhilarating outrageousness that never lets up – Niven’s latest is a more mature work…Niven’s plotting is deft and precise…Straight White Male is caustic and poignant, yet consistently, addictively funny…Clever and joyous, this deserves to do even better than Niven’s bestselling debut.

—— Independent on Sunday

[S]harply written ... a seriously funny book ... the writing ... is so buzzy and fresh it’s still wet on the page.

—— Evening Standard

A hugely entertaining and surprisingly moving book.

—— The Bookbag

The novel is as much comic as tragic…Hilarious…The gimlet-eyed descriptions of celebrity life are impossible to read without smirking…[Niven] can provoke tears of sorrow as well as laughter. . . The complexity and inexplicability of love is a serious subject but, thanks to Niven’s talent, the manopause (sic) has never been such fun.

—— Sunday Telegraph

An incredible book about hedonism

—— Elle

I loved that book.

—— Chrissie Hynde , Q magazine

[O]ne of my favourite reads of the year … Funny, irreverent, touching and well-written, this is definitely recommended.

—— Civilian Reader
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