Slave Prince – a novel of life under Rome

by S.G.Miles

Paperbackv£7.99;ISBN 978-1-909551-31-2; November 2013; SGM Publishing
Digital

Don’t miss the sequel – Roman Brother

Slave Prince is set in the port town of Puteoli on the Bay of Naples, during the reign of Emperor Vespasian; it tells of a young slave boy, taken and sold from the province of Brittania following the suppression of a threatened minor rebellion. As the story progresses through the hot southern-Italian summer, we learn of his background and follow his changing fortunes as the companion to the only son of elected magistrate Lucius Eridanus Caprico. The lonely, home-educated boy’s desire for friendship, met with the slave boy’s stiff awareness of his own lowly status, has the ring of the immensely popular Geoffrey Lewis novel Starlight about it – but the outcome is very different!

Once again forsaking the well-known persona of his pen-name, S G Miles takes his popular writing in another new direction in Slave Prince. With not an English canal in sight, the author proves yet again that he can turn his skills to widely differing scenarios; and the style will be familiar to his many readers – his ability to breathe life into very real characters, whose fortunes quickly become important to us, and the way in which those fortunes can tear at our heartstrings. And again the author’s careful research results in a tale which has the ring of authenticity, portraying life among the relatively privileged classes of Roman society in a wealthy provincial town. A new and different book admirably enhancing Mr Miles’ established library of works!

Steve Miles has likened his writing to a child with an imaginary friend – except that in each of his books he has an entire family and more of imaginary friends! Perhaps that’s why so often what starts as one book ends up growing into a series – ‘because I don’t want to say goodbye to them’. Will that happen with the Familia Eridani?We will have to wait and see: ‘But I’ve grown rather fond of Leo and Marius, and Lucius and Petra – and the old general …’

Don’t miss the sequel – Roman Brother