One seeks to save an empire. The other seeks to save his soul.

A 2025 Eric Hoffer Award finalist.

books2read.com/empresssoldier

‘A dangerous world of seduction and intrigue…the storytelling is gripping…the dialogue as keen as an assassin’s blade.’

Alistair Tosh, author of Siege

A cruel command from his merchant father drives sixteen-year-old Druisius from his home and into the front lines. A decade later, he is a man forged by the loss of his first love and the bloodiness of conquest, a soldier who has traded his humanity for survival.

Eudekia, a scholar’s daughter, was never meant for a crown. But in a city choked by famine and an empire bleeding from war, she has become an Emperor’s bride, a prince’s mother, and the throne’s last hope.

The arrival of a delegation from the lost West changes everything. Among them is a young captain—a man of honor who offers Druisius, now a city guard, something he thought he’d lost forever: a chance to move beyond his violent past.

As the Captain captures Eudekia’s heart and Druisius’s devotion, the three are woven into a dangerous web of intrigue. In the span of a few weeks, Druisius must decide if his loyalty belongs to his past, or to the man who offers a future he never dared to dream of.

A stand-alone novel that is also a second entry point into the Empire’s Legacy series.

While I’ll keep this website somewhat updated, for short stories, poetry, non-fiction, as well as more frequent updates, find me at

https://substack.com/@marianlthorpe

Maria’s newest book, The Reckoning of Rheged, is newly out, so I invited her to talk about her books, set in northern Britain in the early-medieval period.

Hi all, today on this guest blog post (thanks again Marian!) I thought I’d talk about the real history behind the kingdom of Rheged.

The series began in 2018 with my debut novel, The Boy from the Snow.  It’s the story of my main character Daniel, a warrior who must choose who his friends and foes really are when he discovers a truth about his past. The sequel The Veiled Wolf was published in 2019.

The Reckoning of Rheged, the third novel in the series, was just published last week, so I thought it would be an apt time to revisit the historical backdrop.

The Real Rheged – the setting

Allow me to share a bit more about the historical world of Rheged. This map of North Rheged was designed by my friend Beth Baguely.

As you’ll see on the map, the Kingdom of Rheged was a real Brittonic Kingdom that spanned much of Cumbria, Lancashire and into Cheshire, stretching as far east as the Pennines. The capital city of the kingdom was Caer Ligualid, based in modern day Carlisle. King Urien, Rheged’s most famous king who ruled over the entire kingdom, really did exist, as did his son Prince Owain.

While the kingdom of North Rheged and its city Caer Ligualid really existed, the smaller kingdoms of Gaeson and Klumeck are purely fictional. I set Gaeson at Gummer’s How, a hill near Lake Windermere at the heart of the Lake District. The kingdom of Klumeck is much further to the east, at the border to the kingdom of Bernicia. I imagine it would be based in the Pennines, perhaps Cross Fell.

The Real Rheged – the History

When writing this history of kings and war and Daniel going on a quest or two, it really can feel like a fantasy, especially with the main characters being fictional. However, I have also really tried to intertwine the fictional story with the historical, from large-scale battles recorded, to small little details like what my characters would have eaten and worn during this time.

One of my most enjoyable aspects of writing historical fiction is to have Daniel meet the real historical figures of Rheged. Another one of the most famous characters Daniel encounters is King Urien’s bard, Taliesin. Taliesin was one of North Rheged’s most famous poets, whose work is still read today. In fact, his writings are a substantial part of Welsh classic/historical literature, as well as recording much of the primary sources that we have for the period.

Not to spoil things too much, but the antagonist in the third novel is also based on a real historical figure who opposed Rheged’s kings. A lot of my research was done online. The early writings of Taliesin, as well as the monk Bede, have been crucial to research. I also have a one or two historical reference books I go back to again and again that cover the era as a whole.

After deciding on the era for the story, it took a lot of research to understand the way people would have lived. Details like what they would have eaten, how they would have dressed and what names people would have had were frequent Google searches, as well as the religious scene/worldview of the time. The worldview of Celtic Rheged is predominantly Christian, due to the Roman influence from when they occupied Britain a couple of centuries before.

The Real Rheged – the worldview

As a Christian myself, being able to have my faith naturally bleed into my writing was another reason for picking the era I did. Although the book is not specifically Christian fiction, Daniel talks openly about his faith and I do pick up on some Christian themes. This is one of the reasons my MC is called Daniel, as well as another few side characters (Sarah, John, Joshua, Rachel, Ruth). I tried to have a few names that were biblical in origin, due to the Roman influence. The vast majority of names, though, are Brittonic Celtic.

Whilst I’m by no means a historical expert on the era, I’m hoping that through telling Daniel’s story – and now Imogen’s – it sheds some light (no pun intended) onto the Dark Ages. Hopefully it will spark imagination of what this world was really like. Ultimately, I hope you enjoy reading about Rheged as much as I have done writing about it.

If you’re interested in checking out my historical fiction, all three of my books are available on Amazon, as either Ebook or paperback. They’re also in KU.

The Boy from the Snow

The Veiled Wolf

The Reckoning of Rheged

Why not sign up to my newsletter? You’ll get a free copy of an Edwardian historical mystery romance The Oak Tree Calls, exclusive to subscribers.

Thanks for having me!

Maria

I’ve been mostly absent from social media, blogging, promoting my books, and generally any on-line presence for most of January. Since the 9^th of the month, I’ve been in England, getting here just in time to see and have lucid, intelligent conversations with a very elderly cousin before she died four days later, and since then, dealing with all the responsibilities of an executor. The death to register, the lawyers to meet, the funeral to arrange, the house and contents to be valued, banks and utilities to be informed – anyone who’s been through this knows there is a lot to do. I’ll be here a few weeks yet: the house will go up for sale, the valuable contents will be auctioned, with some items needing specialist sales (more research). There’s a piano to be shipped. An energy audit required on the house. The list sometimes looks endless.

In between, of course, I do the grocery shopping and take carloads of things to charity shops (both involving an hour’s round trip from the tiny north Norfolk village my cousin called home), and call people to take away the stairlift and the mobility scooter…and once in a while I take a couple of hours off and go birding, for sanity.

And somewhere, in this last week, I stopped agonizing over the book that isn’t being written, or the retweets that aren’t happening, or the books I’m not reviewing, or the promotions I’m not posting. For two major reasons: one practical, one—philosophical, perhaps?

Practically, there aren’t enough hours in the day; at two months short of 65, I don’t have the energy I once did. Just getting through what needs to be done, taking time for at least a short walk, and preparing three meals a day, simple as they are (and cleaning up) is all I’m going to do.

I’m not 40-something now, even if my mind thinks I am.

Philosophically, there’s also the processing of loss, of saying goodbye. I won’t say I’m grieving, exactly: my cousin was nearly 102, had lived a marvelous life, and was ready to go. I’ll miss her, though: miss her stories of Oxford in the war years and of her first teaching job in a remote Cumberland village; miss her erudite and incisive opinions of literature classic and modern (don’t get an MFA, she told me, everyone who does writes in the same way). I’ll miss her ability to quote long passages of the metaphysical poets and Macauley’s Lays of Ancient Rome. She once spent some considerable time working out if my Latin-based conlanguage has proper grammar. (It doesn’t.) She liked my books: they made her think, she said. She left me, specifically, her library.

Sorting through the remnants and memories of a life takes time, and it takes attention. I was entrusted with this task because she said I’d know what was important. Honouring that takes time and attention and energy, too. So Empire’s Passing will wait, and I’ll lose followers on social media and my other books sales will drop. But I will have kept a promise, and that matters more.

And someday–maybe–I’ll be back.