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The Titus Chronicles-Eagle and Wyvern
Year
2020
Language
ENGLISH
Publication Information
R.W. Peake
Summary
In the Year of our Lord 878, the kingdom of Wessex is under threat. King Alfred has been forced to flee from his winter court in Cippinhamm by Guthrum, self-styled King of the Danelaw and East Anglia, part of the great invasion force by the horde that will become known as the Vikings. Driven into the swamps of Somersetshire, Alfred spends a miserable winter at Athelney before finally feeling that the time is right to call the fyrd, the Saxon call to arms summoning the men of Westseaxe to rally to their King to drive the Danish invaders from their lands.Answering that call is young Titus of Cissanbyrig, a youth with an unusual name to go along with his unusual size and strength. Despite only being fourteen and that his village is under the control of Wulfhere, Ealdorman of Wiltshire who has sided with Guthrum, Titus decides to leave the only home he's ever known, joining the call issued by the Lord of Wilton, one of the nobles of Wiltshire who has remained faithful to the King, more than a dozen miles away.What drives Titus from his home is the enmity of his father, who blames him for Titus' mother's death in childbirth because of his size, but while he will never know it, the truth is more complex. Ultimately what sends young Titus on his first steps towards his destiny, is his deep-seated, insistent belief that he's not meant for a life behind the plow but for the sword, a conviction that has been passed to him across almost a millennium of time, to a dusty Roman province in Spain, by a man who was the first, Titus Pomponius Pullus, Centurion of Rome.The Titus Chronicles-Eagle and Wyvern is the first of a new series by the author of the international bestselling Marching With Caesar series. R.W. Peake wrote his first novel when he was 10.He published his first novel when he was 50.Obviously, a lot happened in between, including a career as a "grunt" in the Marine Corps, another career as a software executive, a stint as a semi-professional cyclist, and becoming a dad.But, through it all, there was one constant: his fascination with history, which led him back to school in his 30s to earn a degree in History from the Honors College at the University of Houston.One morning years later, R.W. was listening to Caesar's Commentaries while he was on his morning commute to a job he hated. A specific passage about Caesar's men digging a 17 mile ditch between Lake Geneva and the Jura Mountains suddenly jumped out at him.He was reminded of his own first job at 13 digging a ditch in Hardin, Texas. For the rest of the drive that morning, he daydreamed about what life must have been like not for the Caesars of the world, but for the everyday people who were doing the fighting and dying for Rome, and the idea for Marching with Caesar was born.Not too long after that, he quit that job, moved into a trailer halfway across the country, and devoted the next four years to researching and writing the first installments of Marching with Caesar.Some of his research methods-like hiking several miles around Big Bend National Park in the heat of summer wearing a suit of chainmail and carrying a sword so he would know what it felt like to be a Roman legionary-were a bit unconventional and made his friends and family question his sanity.But such was his commitment to bringing these stories to life for his readers with as much detail and accuracy as possible.Even as his catalog continues to grow, he still brings that passion to every story he tells.He has moved out of the trailer, but he still lives on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington with his Yellow Lab, Titus Pomponius Pullus and his rescue dog, Peach.