During Sam's walk across northern England from coast to coast, a lightning strike blasts him back to 67 AD. Shortly the Roman Empire will be split by civil war after the Emperor Nero is deposed in 68. Will Prince Venutius seize this chance to rebel and depose the pro-Roman High Queen of the Brigantes, Cartimandua? If he does, Sam's captors will certainly support Venutius. Being a student of ancient history, Sam knows how Romans deal with rebels. Meanwhile he has to overcome suspicion, win freedom from slavery and earn his place in a fierce warrior society. He finds a lover too and, at the Great Feast of Samhain, she stands with him when an enemy invokes the power of the Dark Goddess against them both.
About the Author: Mike Harrington was born in the English Lake District in 1941. At the time his father was doing wartime service in the Royal Artillery. After the war the family moved to Essex, where Mike attended Brentwood School. His boyhood wish to be an scientist or engineer was thwarted by his weakness in maths, so he eventually became a classicist. At The Queen's College, Oxford, he read Literae Humaniores from 1960 to 1964 and stayed another year to gain a teaching qualification. In 1965 he started his first job as a teacher of Classics at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. In 1970 he joined the administrative staff at Bath University. In 1981 he moved to the University of Liverpool, firstly as the Vice-Chancellor's PA, then in the Editorial and Publishing Office and the Student and Examinations Division. He took early retirement at the end of 1993. The chance came to buy a house in Ravenglass in 1994. He already had connections there from working as a volunteer guard on the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway. He enjoys the social life of the village. He is secretary of the Ravenglass Village Forum and a First Responder. As a freelance writer he has contributed local news stories to the Whitehaven News and articles to Cumbria Magazine. At Oxford Mike's interest in traditional music was awakened when he joined the Heritage Society, the University's folk club. At Bath University he became a Morris dancer and musician. Outside work he also ran a ceilidh band. He plays melodeon and harmonica fairly well and a 12-string guitar tolerably. He can't read dots but he has a very good memory for tunes and a collection of fairly salacious folk songs, which he will sing at any opportunity to perform in public. Apart from writing, music and a constant battle to outwit software that thinks it is smarter than he is, Mike's other interests include cars, motorbikes, history, archaeology and anything driven by steam. Sometimes he wonders if there is another Mike in a parallel universe who was better at maths and actually succeeded in becoming an engineer.