I recently had the good fortune to be one of the editors for this wonderful series. It’s a historical fiction series about the adventures of General Belisarius of the Byzantine Empire. If you think you have similar taste in books as me, check these out. I enjoyed my time with these characters, I think you’ll like them too.
Link to Book 1, ‘Empire Resurgent’
Flavius Belisariusis a man’s man, a young and brilliant general who stands out amongst the other tyrannical and conniving men in his class. Unlike the others, he seeks the glory and restoration of Rome and needs little for himself. Or so he thought.
All at once, he is enamored by a startlingly beautiful and famously promiscuous woman, Antonina. Despite his awkwardness around women, he wins her heart. But her heart does not stay in the same place for too long.
Belisarius is called upon to reconquer an ancient Roman colony. Fueled by the greatness of his mission, he completely loses sight of his wife, until he finds her in the enemy’s cellar tangled in the arms of another man. The scene is more wretched, gorier than any he had seen on the battlefield. And it is one that he cannot shake. Will the great man of Rome, Belisarius General of the East, buckle under a broken heart? Or will he have the courage to stand, even wounded?
Link to Book 2, ‘Empire in Apocalypse’
Three years after that fateful scene of his wife’s infidelity in the cellar of the Vandal king, Belisarius is still a troubled man. He sees her betrayal in the way his servants won’t look him in the eye, in the disrespectful smirks from his fellow generals, and in the mesmerizing sway of his wife’s hips. Worst of all, he sees it in the charm of a handsome godson who seems to outcompete him for his wife’s affection.
To distract himself, Belisarius throws himself into the ominous challenge before him: reclaiming the Roman lands lost in Italy half a century earlier. Always outnumbered but rarely outwitted, Belisarius and his five-thousand men occupy and hold Rome against a siege by a hundred-thousand wild Goths. Despite this, his wife’s indiscretions undermine the serenity that should follow his success.
Far away, on a fiery island in the North Atlantic, Hibernian monks investigate a mysterious plume of smoke blanketing the sky and covering the earth in shadows. Their leader, Brendan, makes an ominous discovery about the possibly grim future of humankind and must do whatever it takes to relay the disturbing revelation to the Empress in Constantinople.
Belisarius is determined to fight on, regardless of the darkened sky, crop failures, and starvation that vex his men. Against all odds, he completes his conquest of Italy and upon reaching the Gothic capital of Ravenna, is offered the crown of the Western Empire for himself. To end the bloody war, he pretends to accept the offer but is recalled to Constantinople before he can properly secure the Empire’s victory. In Constantinople, he faces the judgment of a suspicious imperial couple and a punitive redeployment to a resurgent Persia.
Carried on divine winds, Brendan sails across the known world to deliver his foreboding message of the coming Apocalypse. Not even Theodora, Empress of the East herself, can discredit the monk’s portentous story of the erupting mountain, a darkening over all the earth, and widespread famine. When the bubonic plague reaches Constantinople’s harbor, unleashing death in the city and threatening the life of Justinian, it seems as though Brendan’s prophecy about the End of Days has arrived.
Belisarius must face the cold, hard truth Brendan brings that the new world order he is working to establish may be burning to the ground.
Link to Book 3, ‘Empire in Twilight’
Will Belisarius have the strength to fight one final battle through the might of his sword and tongue? Will his burdensome endeavors mean anything when his days are finally done? Will Rome stand after he falls?
And, most importantly, will his fervor quench the flame that is his wife’s lusts? will he have the strength to endure heartache and reignite his passionate loyalty to the woman that he loves?
General Flavius Belisarius is a soldier known for his sense of honor, duty, and diligence, on the battlefield and loyalty to the Emperor after Rome emerges victorious against the Persians, Vandals, and Goths. But underneath this triumphal façade, his patience for his wife’s ongoing infidelity and deceit weighs heavily on his broken heart. When even the possibility of continued matinee with her lover shakes him to the core, he summons his wife to join him on Rome’s frontier, but only as his prisoner, and arranges for the castration of her lover, his lecherous godson. His heart and mind are finally at ease, knowing the two lovers cannot be together.
The year is 543 A.D., and the Eastern Roman Empire is struggling under the plague-stricken Emperor Justinian.
But that ease is met with retribution and strife when he is again recalled to the capital in shame and reprisal for the third time, on the whim of the vengeful empress Theodora. Her retribution goes even further when he faces trumped-up charges of high treason. He narrowly escapes living out the rest of his days in a sealed-up, dark, wet, filth-infested cell, when the Emperor regains control and releases him.
He is chastised with an impossible order that is certain to end in disaster and disgrace: to retake Italy from the resurgent Goths—but without a field army or gold from the treasury. With his men on the brink of starvation, while serving under the Emperor’s banner, he realizes that prestige, honor, and victory are mere vanities, and he yearns for a simpler life.
But rest does not come, as enemies of the Empire still lie in wait, and the tongues of wicked conspirators never quiet.
John Mendez- Book Reviews and More 