Engineering student Amalia Weber is only training in Olympic judo to please her overbearing father. Caught in a storm on her daily run, the screams of a drowning woman draw her to a lake deep within the mystic Teutoburg forest. But when she jumps in to attempt a rescue, she’s pulled under herself… and somehow awakens alive two thousand years in the past.
Now, enslaved by Roman soldiers—including the legendary Germanic-prince-turned-Roman-officer Arminius—Amalia struggles to survive in a world where her life means nothing. And when her twenty-first-century knowledge is discovered, returning to her own time becomes the least of her worries.
Caught between the merciless forces of Rome and the wild Germanic tribes who dare to defy them, can a modern woman forge history as we know it?
Echoes of Germania is the first book in the riveting Tales of Ancient Worlds series. A mix between Vikings, Rome, A Games of Thrones, and Outlander, H.B. Ashman’s new novel is a stay-up-all-night nail-biter. -from Netgalley.com
I received this book for free through Netgalley.com in exchange for a review.
I am not a fan of historical fiction. I never felt comfortable trying to grasp the idea that a person would get transported through time to somewhere in the past (it never seems to be the future). Most instances, the character ends up trying to not mess up the 'time line continuum' or does, and just doesn't care. But mostly I don't care for these types of stories is it dwells on a time period that I obviously know nothing about, so the absurdity of somethings to me, might be a possibility then, and it distracts me from the story. That being said, I really enjoyed this book. Weird, right? I requested it (and received it) just on the description, even though it was describing something I normally do not like. I actually thought on it a couple days before even requesting.
Though the story seems to start off slow, you have to understand the main character. I felt it was pretty vague, and overboard in the abilities, but not unbelievable. The story quickly gets into the whole time displacement and how she gets transported back in time, to the Roman conquering days in the Germanic region of Europe, which is parallel to where she lived in modern-day Germany. Obviously the German of 2000 is different than that of the early A.D. period, and amazingly, our main character has taken Latin in school, though she is a bit rusty in speaking it, AND it happens to be 'High Latin' that usually only high ranking soldiers and politicians use, versus the common Latin used by the masses. Our main character is captured, and through strokes of luck, is able to impress enough of the senior officers that she is worth keeping alive, and off the slave market.
The romance part does enter into play, and there is a romance of a few years. This wasn't all sex scenes and 'oh what a hunk' type of writing, and covered a good four years. Our main character is now being escorted to Rome, from Germania, under the thumb of the death of her romantic interest and their son (though, we don't know they are dead yet, the story likes to make us think so). There she is imprisoned. I'm going to leave out the rest of the spoilers there.
The mix of the possible mystic use of 'magic' by the people in the Germanic region is played throughout this story. The use of Norse mythology is mixed in as well. Our character has at least a couple interactions with a 'witch-woman' that are beneficial to the story, and the choices made/taken by said character. The politics - oh! The politics! I hate them - with passion in a story. But here the author did a well done job of making them part of the story, and yet not so overbearing and controlling in the story, it feels like you are reading a modern-day law book. From my history classes, and a few books, I have always understood the basics of Roman politics, and the machinations of the Senate, and the family/families related to the current Caesar. It is all very slick and nasty.
I am definitely looking forward to the next book, as I would like to find out what happens next. I do not know for sure if this is the first work the author has done, but will be looking for him and possible other works as well. Though there is not much world-building in this story, because we know how the Earth is, and can relate to an early history Germany, I would like to see this author make a foray into a more fantasy world than one history based.
I'm only giving 4.5 stars, only because the start of the story was pretty vague, and the skills given to the main character were obviously in place to make some of the story possible, therefore, making it even harder for me to believe. Expert Judo? Okay... possible. Learned three languages, including not only written, but spoken Latin? Possible, but highly unlikely. And that it would be 'High Latin'? I don't know, but I think 2000 years difference would affect the speech there as well. But I am not a linguistic professor.
