Rome 23 BCE
 
In the depths of serious illness, the Emperor Augustus is forced to rethink how he governs the city. He calls upon an unlikely helper, Lucius Sestius, once one of those who fought against Augustus. To Lucius’ consternation, he is catapulted into office just at a time when a pestilence is sweeping through Italy. Thousands of people are dying and the River Tiber is riding dangerously high.
 
But Lucius finds himself not only fighting floods and an epidemic. A conspiracy is forming, centered on Lucius’ friend Aulus and the respected Primus, hero of the war in Macedonia. The Emperor feels threatened and Lucius is expected to choose sides. When Aulus comes begging for help to escape Italy, Lucius cannot refuse.

It is a mistake that brings the Emperor’s wrath down on him and Lucius’ whole family pays a heavy price to redeem themselves in the eyes of Augustus.

Mark Dresdner’s cover is blown, forcing him to flee East Germany, yet he refuses to leave the woman he loves. Finding the border crossing blocked, and the enemy closing in, will he evade capture or be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice?

On an archeological dig in Southern England, Dr. Franger finds herself transported back to the Dark Ages and at the side of the noble Lord Erik who commands an army of elite Saxon warriors. Witnessing the unrest firsthand, Gwyneth senses that her instincts had been right all along, and she is determined to learn the identities of the treacherous blackguards hiding in the shadows, villains who may well be posing as Lord Erik’s friends and counselors.

Gwyneth knows it is wrong to stop the assassins but isn’t sure she can find the strength to walk away and watch her beloved Erik die. Will she intervene, change the course of history and wipe out an entire timeline to save the man she loves?

Enter Concordia, a beautiful noblewoman whose family is favored by the king. Vain, willful, and admired, but ambitious and cunning, Concordia is not willing to accept her fate. She is betrothed to the valiant warrior, Brantson, but sees herself as far too young to lay in the bedchamber of an older suitor. She wants to see the wonders of the world, embracing everything in it; preferably, but dangerously, at the side of Thayer, the exotic Saracen who charms King Alfred’s court and ignites her yearning passions.

Concordia manipulates her besotted husband into taking her to Rome, but her ship is captured by bloodthirsty pirates, and the seafarers protecting her are ruthlessly slain to a man.

Concordia finds herself at the center of intrigue, plots, blackmail, betrayal, and the vain desires of two egotistical brothers, each willing to die for her favor. She must defend her honor while plotting her escape as she awaits deliverance, somewhere inside steamy, unconquered Muslim Hispania.

Now, a further two years later, the Vikings return. Noble Prince Sven instigates a seaborne invasion, fuelled partly by blind rage when he discovers that his brother, Prince Erik, has sworn fealty to the Anglo-Saxon king.

His own brother: A traitor and a fool.

Erik’s love, Lady Gwyneth, attempts to stop the invasion before it starts by uniting the two estranged brothers, but her scheming only succeeds in making matters worse. Indeed, her interference guarantees the death of thousands of warriors in the freezing, tumultuous North Sea.

So when the horns of Sven’s monumental fleet of warships are heard off the fogbound coast of Britannia, King Alfred – outnumbered, outshipped, and weary of the fray - must rouse his jaded Saxon warriors and lead them to sea, to repel his most formidable enemy yet.

For a host motivated by the spilled blood of the fallen, the spirit of black vengeance, and the delights of a warrior’s reward in Valhalla, is the most fearsome opponent of all.

Two years have passed since Alfred the Great successfully defeated Guthrum, King of the Vikings.

The fair land of England is at peace. That is, until the harmony is threatened by Guthrum’s angry, vengeful, illegitimate son, Rigr, who is hell-bent on usurping his father’s throne.

Rigr demands his Birthright – an acknowledgment that he is the sole heir to the Danelaw, but his father refuses his claim. Rigr assembles his army; a motley, but formidable, cohort of disenchanted warriors.

Fearsome Guthrum, the ruler of everything from Kent to Northumbria, is made aware of the threat and conjures his forces, meeting the rebellious host on the field at Thetford.

Thousands upon thousands of bloodthirsty warriors confront each other on the sunlit, windless plains of East Anglia. The victors will rewrite the course of history, and the fate of England is in the hands of the gods of war.

An uneasy peace holds sway: The King establishes a standing army under Lord Richard, who takes command of the citadel at Wareham.

Richard and his army are accompanied by his daughter, Gwyneth, an impetuous and reckless young woman – at once striking, intellectually gifted, but dangerously vain and imprudent.

While Richard broods on the Viking threat, Gwyneth falls in love with an enemy prince - only to discover that she has been betrothed to a Saxon warrior twice her age.

Refusing to countenance her grim fate, she flees the fortress but is soon kidnapped by a Viking warrior and taken to the camp of King Guthrum while Saxon search parties scour the land.

In captivity, a hostage to fortune, and the focus of political intrigue, Gwyneth is submerged in a world of expediency, betrayal and black treachery. Slowly, she realizes the truth is suspect, nothing is what it appears and her reality cannot be trusted.

Heeding the call of His Holiness, Urban II, to free the Holy Land from the infidel, Etienne follows Duke Robert of Normandy across the treacherous miles, braving sweltering heat and snow-covered mountain passes while en route to the Byzantine Empire.

Moved by Peter of Amiens’ charismatic rhetoric in the streets of the Holy Roman Empire, Avielle joins the humble army of pilgrims. Upon arrival in Mentz, the peasant Crusaders do the unthinkable, destroying the Jewish Community. Consumed with guilt, Avielle is determined to die fighting for Christ, assuring her place in Heaven.

Etienne and Avielle cross paths in Constantinople, where they commiserate over past misdeeds. A spark becomes a flame, but when Avielle contracts leprosy, Etienne makes a promise to God, offering to take the priest cowl in exchange for ridding Avielle of her affliction.

Will Etienne be true to his word if Avielle is cleansed of the contagion, or will he risk eternal damnation to be with the woman he loves?

Rome. The jewel of the civilized world is no longer what it was. Strength has failed the Senate. Her legions are in disarray, and the Empire has fallen into Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus Nero’s hands. His reign begins under a cloud of scrutiny, for he is the depraved Emperor Caligula’s nephew. Nero is determined to overcome that stigma and carve a name of his own. One worthy of Rome’s illustrious history.

Politics and treachery threaten to end Nero’s reign before it begins, forcing him to turn to unexpected sources for friendship and help. Many of the Praetorian Guard have watched over Nero since he was a small child, and it is in Traian that the young Emperor places his trust, despite the inherent threat of reducing his mother’s influence. Traian is the father he never had and the one man who does not judge him.

The whirlwind that follows will shake the very foundations of the greatest Empire the world has ever known, and survival is far from guaranteed.

It is 1916, and Mexico is on the brink of revolution. Despite armed bandits streaming over the border into New Mexico and prejudice against female ranchers, feisty little Agnes Day is determined to keep the family ranch and run it on her own terms. Her ally in the fight is Will Bowers, a strong and silent New Mexico Guardsman assigned to nearby Camp Columbus under General Blackjack Pershing, but Will hides a dark and disturbed background that stops him from committing to any one or any place. Then the United States enters World War I and both Agnes and Will are swept into conflagration. Can Agnes secure a peaceful future on the Sunrise Ranch after the insanity and bloodshed of war? Dare she hope to share that future with someone else?

What if Beowulf is the written account of a story that stretches back to the dawn of time? Helen Bowie asks this question. Hrunting, daughter of Unferth, the mage of Heorot, lives it. Both women are fighting for the rights of social outsiders against powerful men, heroes with the power to change society, perhaps for the better, perhaps not. The stories of two women who lived 25,000 years apart asks the reader to consider who determines who is human and who must be destroyed.


OMG!!!! Once I saw how the two stories paralleled each other, I went into a completely different reading mode. More and more similar situations kept occurring. I even went back to find out what I had missed earlier. The author might very well have been listening to Ravel’s Bolero to weave the stories then build up to the crescendo.

Reading this book was an experience; not just two stories in two separate time periods, but rather a lesson in human nature. I only hope that we learn from it…

THE POINT OF VANISHING is based on the true story of author Barbara Follett. On a December night in 1939 Barbara Follett fought with her husband and stormed out of their Boston home never to be heard from again. Now novelist Maryka Biaggio provides a captivating account of Barbara's enigmatic life—and disappearance.