Find out the latest indie author news. For FREE.

ADVERTISEMENT

Martin Tessmer
Author
The Noble Brute

ROME, 325 BCE. Young Quintus is the despair of his revered patrician family. He fights in the pankration ring, drinks with the commoners, and wanders the dark Italia forests. Unkempt, unshorn, and totally incorruptible, the man nicknamed ‘Rullianus’ (the Brute) is content to live out a wild life of leisure. 

Then the dread Samnites descend from the mountains, intent on destroying Rome. Rullianus joins the war as an officer, but he soon finds himself fighting his commanders as well as the Samnites. 

To combat them both, Rullianus enlists an amazing array of allies. There is Ham, the gigantic armorer who helps him revolutionize Roman warfare. The Golden Mouse, a young captain obsessed with following his father’s fatal path. The sorceress Cornelia, who summons the supernatural to protect Rullianus. And Lucius Papirius, the Iron General who becomes both enemy and friend.

The Noble Brute begins the saga of the early Republic’s greatest commander.

Reviews
Amazon.com

Mr. Tessmer, known for his saga about the life of Scipio Africanus, has written another excellent novel from ancient Rome in the fourth century BCE. This, the first in a trilogy, deals with the life of Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus as he grows from a carefree Roman patrician into a Consul and General supported by the plebians.

Mr. Tessmer deftly moves the "Brute," as Quintus Fabius was known, from an immature, spoiled man to an adult who accepts greater responsibility for protecting Rome and his plebian friends.

As usual, Mr. Tessmer's battle scenes are first-rate getting into strategy and tactics and the nitty-gritty details of fighting and dying in hand-to-hand combat. It is a quick read as he maintains a high level of suspense in both the battle and political scenes.

Mr. Tessmer grows as a writer with each book getting better and better.

ADVERTISEMENT

Loading...