Well characterised, this novel is opening volume in an epic series - good plot, with history succinctly told (when relevant), and quite an effective style of handling the ambient. There is a convincing focus on military battles adn decisions are satisfactorily explained .. what is also intriguing is that while teh dialogue seems on first appearance to be anachronistic, either I got used to it, or its flare of wit kept me amused enough not to bother me. For example people speak very colloquially as if in London 2017. Very good for long days on holiday.

For a book that's only 400 pages long, Betrayal by Anthony Riches, took a painful amount of time to read. It is, and perhaps only people who've read the book will understand this comment, as hard to read as the struggles his crack Batavi troops endure as they forge rivers in all their armour. This is a huge shame. I can almost understand what the author was trying to achieve with this novel, and perhaps, for those who know the period well it will be a great success, but as a newly come reader to Roman era historical fiction, I found I needed to rely on my very sparse knowledge from other Roman historical fiction books to even have an inkling of what was happening.

Much of this could perhaps be remedied with a few more 'signposts' for the reader throughout the text. While the author informs us where the action is taking place, it would have been better to have known who the storyline actually involved. The characters all seem to have a number of different names and the author uses them freely, when in actual fact, they all just needed one name, and probably their title before that name - Centurion, Decurion, Legatus etc etc. In a story with so many characters the author really needs to help the reader by informing them as to who they're reading about - there were great swathes of this novel when I literally had no idea which character the storyline was about and how it related to the other person I'd just been reading about. Some of this is due to the story being told, and the 'actual' events that took place, but much of it is just sloppy storycrafting.

The prologue is almost unreadable - sentences taking up the ENTIRE page on my Kindle and it took me three attempts to get through it. I was relieved when the prologue ended and the real story could get under way, but even that relief didn't last too long. While the events of the prologue are later seen to have real significance to the storyline, I think they're mentioned so often, that a 'flashback' would have sufficed. There is painstaking detail about the equivalent of a game of football/rugby but on other occasions, the characters somehow appear 'overnight' in Italy from Germany with very little explanation as to why, and and then travel back just as quickly. It makes me feel that there either wasn't enough to make this a complete story, or that the author was trying to achieve too much in one book.

I do not believe that historical fiction should be 'dumbed' down so that readers can relate to it but it must be told in a manner that's understandable to those who know little about it. This is the seventh work of Roman historical fiction I've read in as many weeks, and apart from one other (which I also struggled with) it is the one I enjoyed the least and also, understood the least. A real shame as I enjoy intelligent novels about the politics of the time, but this completely defeated me.

I actually struggled to get into this initially. I think i'm so familiar with Riches' 'Empire' books and its amazing cast of characters that I took awhile to get to grips with this.

Luckily enough, as soon as i'd familiarised myself with the different characters, I felt like we were old friends. The group of Centurions come across as real, believable men, and its easy to imagine them as modern day squaddies and NCOs. The camaraderie and banter between the men makes for easy and enjoyable reading, and the quick jumps between the different forces drags the story along at a breakneck pace.

This new series is set in a familiar era of Roman history for many of us, so what makes the series so exciting is to see how Riches balances the different sides of the civil war with the inevitable outcome we all expect. I can't wait to see how the trilogy unfolds, and with only a short wait for book 2, it still cant come soon enough!