Ready for another adventure in the Roman Empire of Trajan in AD 106? The next volume in the Light in the Empire series is here!
Hope’s Reward can be read stand-alone, like all the books in the Light in the Empire series. But if you’ve been wondering where Ursus went after he left Ariana and Donatus in Hope Unchained, now you can discover what happened to him as a new child of God.
It’s a story of two people hoping to escape the past and longing for a different future. When God brings together a runaway gladiator and a pagan Roman noblewoman desperate for a new life, difficulties and danger are sure to follow. Come join me again for a new story of light in the darkness and hope in difficult times.
Available as e-book, paperback, and hardcover at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as e-book at Kobo, and at local bookstores by special order.
Hope’s Reward by Carol Ashby
Volume 9 of the Light in the Empire series
Must the secrets we hide destroy our hope for a future?
For a gladiator slave, each time you step on the sand, it’s kill or die. When Ursus decides to follow Jesus, he must choose to die the next time he’s ordered to fight…or run away. He runs, taking again his childhood name, Matti. But he isn’t just trying to escape. He’s running to Thessalonica, where he hopes to find other Christians like the woman who led him to faith.
When Felicia’s new husband, Falco, almost kills her in a fit of rage, her uncle won’t help her end the marriage with his business partner. He will send her to her sister in Thessalonica, but only if she tells no one she plans to divorce Falco and demand her dowry back before she gets there. When Matti interrupts a robbery too late to save Felicia’s money for traveling by sea, he offers to bodyguard and escort her overland to their mutual destination.
After Matti risks everything to save her from Falco’s assassins, Felicia fears taking the danger to her sister’s family. When his Christian friends take them in, she discovers the deepest desires of her heart. But will the secrets of Matti’s past make a future together impossible?
Light in the Empire Series: Dangerous times, difficult friendships, lives transformed by forgiveness and love
Hope’s Reward is the ninth volume in the Light in the Empire series, which follows the interconnected lives of five Roman families during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. Each can be read stand-alone. The eleven novels of the series will take you around the Empire, from Germania and Britannia to Thracia, Dacia, and Judaea and, of course, to Rome itself.