Just So Stories

Cover and internal illustrations by Lorena Carrington

Published by Eagle Books, an imprint of Christmas Press, May 2023

ISBN 9780645378856

RRP: $19.99

There’s nothing quite like a good ancient Roman historical fiction, and this one full of drama,, deceit and death will appeal to many middle grade readers who relish an exciting and suspense-filled adventure.

The setting is Britain, 84 AD, and 12 year old, Livia, is the daughter of a respected Gaulish eye doctor, and, also, his apprentice in his calling. With no mother, her father’s death leaves Livia an orphan, with only her father’s aged horse and his tools of trade to support herself. On his deathbed, he also gives her a mysterious key and makes her promise to take it to his estranged brother, her Uncle Marcus, who is away to the north.

So two days after losing her father, this plucky girl sets out to find her uncle. When she reaches the town, and house, where her uncle is purported to be, he is nowhere to be found and she can discover nothing about his whereabouts, until a young boy named Mato, slave to one Quintus Aurelius

Silvius, provides her with some information and promises to help her, provided she take him along. A runaway slave is a danger, but Livia senses, that this is not just a slave escaping but a mission, larger than that, and agrees. The two go on their way and encounter not just difficulties but true danger, and as they begin to realise that the key is part of a very dangerous secret and that Livia’s Uncle Marcus has been murdered, they must use all their wits and skill to determine who can be trusted, where they should go and to whom they can turn to for help.

It is, all in all, an exhilarating and tense quest for truth and justice. Readers will gain some interesting insight into life in early Roman-occupied Britain, and the oppression of the native people that always follows the invasion of a ruthless force. Your middle grade kiddos will enjoy it, even if not particular historical fiction fans for it’s fast-paced action and unexpected twists.

Recommended for readers from ten years upwards.