Published By: Bedford Square
Pages: 352
Released On: 15/01/2026
A Female Gladiator’s Vow. A Stolen Child. A Storm to End Empires
In a petrol-fuelled Roman Empire which never fell, Arrow, a gladiatrix turned governess must rescue the child she has loved as her own, a girl who could tear down the world.
When Livy is abducted during a devastating Godstorm, Arrow must unleash years of the gladiator training she’d sworn to forget, to save her. Defying her owner, a heartless Consul, Arrow turns to her ex-lover and the illegal druid underworld in a desperate attempt to rescue the girl she has come to think of as her own.
Her search will take her across Londinium, a city of petrol-powered chariots, to the pagan Old Town, and eventually the edge of the known world: the Amazon, where destiny and destruction intertwine
Facing battle and betrayal Arrow must choose: reclaim her past as a killer—or risk everything for the child who calls her “mother.”
She is the Sword.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Bedford Square for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
It’s a mixture of history, fantasy, and violence, death, power struggles and feminism, an alternate history and feminism and steampunk – it’s a lot.
It doesn’t introduce you to it slowly, oh no. This is full on from the first page and the pace doesn’t let up.
She’s done a good job of depicting weather, the terror of the storms, especially when they were believed to be punishments from the Gods, it adds an extra level of fear.
I loved the depiction of power struggles between the various tiers of society It’s heart-breaking at times, but also quite handy when you’re a lower class citizen who wants to hide – the upper class just don’t see you.
We have two timelines going one. The main one, which takes up most of the book, follows our protagonist Arrow as an adult, with the other showing her as a child. I preferred the chapters that saw her as an adult, I don’t think there was enough of the younger years to make it stand out.
Arrow was a great main character. Her life hasn’t been easy and she’s tried to move on from her past but sadly not all her secrets can be kept secret. She is flawed, but I loved her so much, I think she just owned every page.
The other characters…not so much. It’s not that I felt negatively about them or anything, but they were a bit too background for me. Their interactions with Arrow was a bit on the shorter side, focussing on getting the plot moving means the characterisations were lost a bit.
At the start of some of the chapters, she has added a date in roman numerals, and whilst I don’t mind a roman numeral now and again, they’re not easily translatable and so I had to stop to google what each one said. It should be clear to thee reader what year we’re in and it’s not.
With any opening fantasy book, there is a lot of world building and character creation, but I felt this could do with a touch more. What is there is really good, but I think if the book was just a bit longer, it would give the depth the story deserved.
The cover was also beautiful! I read it in a few hours and I really hope there’s at least a sequel if not a series.
I believe this is her first fiction book, and therefore her first fantasy book. And I thought it was really rather good. It wasn’t perfect, but it was fun, fast-paced, violent, exciting, and just a really good entertaining piece of writing.
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