The first couple of chapters of this book were a bit rocky. I initially felt as though I was reading someone's creative writing project. The dialogue was clunky and if I hadn't read the synopsis of the book, I would have had no idea that the story took place in Roman Britain.

But then, all of a sudden, it became really good. I'm glad that I didn't put it down as I was tempted to do.

The author is really good at communicating personality and I soon became very involved with the characters. I really liked Ruso who is just a regular doctor trying to pay his bills.

The place where this book falls down is that it didn't really feel the way I would imagine Roman occupied Britain would feel. For example, there were a lot of anachronistic terms used, such as 'turf war'. I'm not sure if that's something that the Romans would have said back then, but it sounds like modern business jargon to me and it was a bit jarring. Also, sometimes the characters sounded like they were straight out of South London.

I know that these are small things, but I like details. I don't like things that bring me out of my immersion.

Those niggling things aside, this was a really fun story with engaging characters.