Author: Townsend, Solitaire

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 15 January 2026 by Bedford Square Publishers in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 352 pages
238 x 159 | 0g

'This startling alternative history takes us to a newly-imagined world... The result is a vivid, ferocious adventure' Kim Stanley-Robinson'A highly original, vividly-imagined fantasy Roman Empire where oil is power' Ruth DownieA Female Gladiator’s Vow. A Stolen Child. A Storm to End EmpiresIn an oil-fuelled Roman Empire which never fell, Arrow – a gladiatrix turned governess – must rescue Livy, the child she never meant to love, 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 in order 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 tried not 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 might call her 'mother.'She is the Sword.