Review: Recommended for fans of ancient history fiction
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 18, 2014
‘Legionnaire’ written by James Gawley is part of ‘Exiles of Arcadia’ novel series, start of an interesting story that introduces reader to an exciting life of Roman (Arcadian) legionnaire.Though described by author as "authentic Roman military adventure (albeit in a fantasy setting)" it’s actually placed in fantasy setting called Arcadia, not the Rome itself. Still, it’s obvious that is referring to the final days of Rome Republic though some additional fantasy elements are introduced in order to make story even more exciting.Being Rome history enthusiast it was nice to see that author made good research on Roman history which resulted in fact that no error has been made in terms of history while in same time his fiction story was well integrated in particular time period.On the other hand though being short, the book is a slow starter, spending lot of time introducing reader to the characters and setting the scene, but just when you expect the story to start fully developing, it abruptly ends, preparing the ground for its sequel. Unfortunately (and expectedly), a novel suffers from standard illnesses of self-publishing, although not quite to the extent to which people who read a lot such titles might be used, but still there are certain spelling, grammatical and editing mistakes that would certainly be good to fix as soon as possible for novel to get additional quality.Still, the author manages to skillfully draw reader in turbulent and exciting life of Roman (Arcadian) legionnaire and provide a lot of suspense to keep reader guessing what will happen on pages (and novels) to come. Therefore if you are a fan of ancient history fiction, especially Roman, certainly this title from James Gawley can be highly recommended.