This is a ‘complicated’ five star rating for this book. Ben tells a good story with a unique point of view not seen in many books set in this time period. The story has an obvious plot and the book is well organized. My main concern and issue about this book was that little effort was put into creating a connection between the characters and the reader, in my opinion this is a fatal mistake. If the reader does not care about the characters the reader wont care what happens to the characters and wont really enjoy the book. This rating is complicated because Conn Iggulden’s books are 5 stars hands down, and Ben’s book didn’t come near Conn’s in quality but it was still a great read, worthy of 5 stars only because of the plethora of books worthy of 3 or 4 stars under Ben’s book. The plot didn’t really pick up until the end, the last four chapters had me unable to put the book down, the rest of the book kind of dragged on. I do appreciate the length of the book, 525 pages, but he could of put more into those pages…

Another thing I didn’t really like about the book was that you had to use the provided glossary in the back. I love that Ben used Latin words just as the Romans would of used and he used them in the same context as the Romans, but he used them too much. I didn’t like reading a chapter only to have to stop at this unknown Latin word and have to flip to the back of the book to find the meaning. Sometimes I would have to flip back three or four times a chapter. Five or six Latin words would be ideal but seven pages of Latin words in the glossary is a bit much.

All in all I will be reading the second book in this series and then the third. Its good enough to continue the series.