NEW RELEASE
The Last Villa
A story of love, family tensions, danger, faith, endurance, and change during one the
most turbulent times in the early history of Britain.
Villa Arcadius is a prosperous Romano-Briton estate in south Wales, a remote province of the mighty Roman Empire for more than 300 years. Now, in AD 395, the Empire is on the point of collapse. Entangled in power struggles and civil war, it faces enormous pressures from migrating tribes massing on its borders. In Britain, the depleted and undisciplined Roman army offers little protection from lethal raids by Scoti pirates and marauding Picts. The demise of civic administration is causing wealthy families to abandon their properties and leave Britain. Christianity may now be the official state religion, but the Church is embroiled in bitter theological disputes and heresies.
Yet even in chaotic times individual lives go on. Families grow and change; everyone must adapt to changing circumstances.
The devout domina of the villa, Galeria, is committing her wealth to building a just community. Her intellectual son, Flavius, is focused on an alliance with the neighboring Celtic kingdom for mutual protection and preserving the benefits of classical civilization. The heir to this realm, the stunningly beautiful widow, Elen, must find a husband. Her young son, Dilectus, is a threat to the ambitions of rival warlords, endangering him and his friends. Their coming-of-age means love for him and Galeria’s spirited granddaughter, Claudia. To fulfill a life-long dream, Galeria travels to Rome to show Dilectus his heritage.
Their timing could not have been worse. The Eternal City is about to fall into the hands of the Visigoths. What will become of the last villa in Britannia?
Richard Young, a clinical psychologist practicing in Taos, New Mexico, has a troubled past. His new client, Christopher Carson, bears an uncanny resemblance to the historical Kit Carson. Christopher’s obsession with the injustices perpetrated against Native Americans, heightened by specific details he provides of past injustices, begins to unnerve Richard, an immigrant.
Is this a rare case of an identity disorder, trauma caused by vicarious guilt, or is it something more mysterious and otherworldly? Becoming increasingly suspicious that Christopher is somehow using him, perhaps feigning mental illness to cover up a murder resembling an incident in Kit Carson’s life, Richard’s own life starts to unravel, and his character flaws become more evident. His ever-supportive and talented wife, Sharon, who is an artist, begins to question their relationship.
When Richard encounters Christopher’s daughter, he realizes he knows her under another name. She was deeply involved in the scandal that cost Richard his university job. It will be up to Sharon to resolve the conflicting tensions. The story is set against the harshly beautiful environs of the traditional lands of the Navajo people and the Taos Puebloans, and their vibrant cultures.
The First Village
An entertaining and lively tale of love and ambition set around the end of the Roman occupation of Britain. It offers an alternative telling of the ‘Dream of Macsen’, from the medieval manuscript The Mabinogio
Wales AD 383 is the most remote province of Roman-occupied Britain. Magnus Maximus, known to the Celts as Macsen Wledig, has grown restless with his role as general of the Roman army in Britannia. His nights are broken by dreams of an impossibly beautiful Welsh maiden. He sets his sights on moving his legions out of Britannia to challenge Gratianus – the emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
His most senior officer, Flavius Arcadius, is panicked. The army’s withdrawal will leave his family, neighbours and all of Britannia unprotected, at the mercy of conflict between the local tribes and the even greater threat of pagan invaders from the east. He grasps at his influential mother’s novel ideas for a safer future – a fortified villa surrounded by a self-sufficient agricultural community – if only he could find a way to stay behind when the legions depart. Flavius starts to plot…
Maximus is sufficiently in thrall to his fantasies to allow Flavius to set out with his two friends and fellow officers, Severus and Caradocus, to seek out this dream girl and bring her to him
The three soldiers wander through the wilds of Cymru, intent only on delaying their return. To their astonishment, they come across the youngest daughter of a wily Celtic chieftain. Could she be the maiden of Maximus’s dream? Flavius and Severus are determined to deliver the girl, Elen, to Maximus, ensuring a defensive treaty with a powerful Celtic tribe. Caradocus, however, engineers their escape.
Elen’s beauty is matched by her wit and intelligence and her courage is demonstrated when she saves them both from capture. Before long, the two runaways are in love. But Caradocus and Elen are going to need more than their wits to survive, when they are being hunted – not just by Flavius and Severus, but by Elen’s father and, for all they know, the full might of the Roman army…