Impietas

'In the name of Juno, the guardian of Rome, I invest in you the power to protect, to do what is necessary, to defend our ancestral eternal city.  Arise, Protector of Rome.'

Titus has everything he wants: a province of his own, a beautiful wife, and temporary respite from his demons.

But he is far from home. And when a message arrives, calling him back to his birth city, the Eternal City—Rome, he is unable to refuse the Consul, Marcus Albus, a man who was once a friend and Commander.

But the city is not as he remembered it and dark forces conspire within its very walls. Titus will have to choose: remain loyal to the city he loved? Or oppose the decadent totalitarian state that created him?

Taking the action from the far away shores of Britannia, all the way to the bright, corrupted, heart of the Roman Empire itself, ‘Impietas’ is a page-turning thriller, packed with intrigue, conspiracy, and betrayal.

This character-driven novel explores the dark depths of Rome itself – a Rome which extends as far into the sky as it does underground – a city as beautiful as it is depraved.

The sequel to 2012’s ‘Sacramentum’, and book two in the ‘Decline and Fall’ trilogy.

Dan Berkeley lives with his wife and three children in Cumbria, near to the edge of the Lake District. He is a doctor at Maryport GP practice. He started writing seven years ago, but had the idea for his first book 'Sacramentum' five years before that, whilst awaking from a barely remembered dream. He has been interested in ancient history since he was a child, but was fairly useless at Latin whilst at school. Unfortunately he thought that to do medicine you needed A levels all in sciences, and so didn't do classical civilisation as a subject past GCSE. He therefore spent most of his time at medical school, reading books about ancient Rome and Greece, and drinking ale. Whilst at school he did try writing some short stories, but with no exceptions--these were awful. Even his English teacher told him they were awful. Having read ancient history, and enjoying the works of Bernard Cornwell, Conn Iggulden, Wilbur Smith, and Robert Harris, he felt it was time to try to combine three ideas: write an alternative history in the style of 'Fatherland', with the type of action, and characterisation, of an Iggulden or Cornwell novel, and the sickening descriptive brutality of a Smith book. At least he was writing what he wanted to read. When he is not writing, he also enjoys: strategic board gaming, medicine, brewing ale, drumming (badly), walking on the fells, and trying to eat as many different types of animal as possible. Sacramentum is his first book, with two sequels in the pipelines. The second book in the trilogy, 'Impietas' is due for release in May 2014 and is set an Rome itself. He is also the author of a communication and practical skills guide to the CSA exam, the final part of the MRCGP.