Echoes of Germania
Germania, circa 9 BCE: Roman general Nero Claudius Drusus defeats the Cherusci tribe. He drowns the Cherusci seer’s daughters despite her pleas and curses, and kidnaps the Cherusci leader’s son to raise as a Roman.
Germany, present day: Amalia has trained as an Olympic-level judoka, but her true passion is engineering. Running by the lake in which, 2000 years before, a seer’s daughters drowned, Amalia hears a woman scream and dives in. She goes under the water and surfaces in ancient Germania.
Amalia surprises the Roman soldiers guarding the Germania border, including Marius Vincius, his friend Arminius, and the slimy Gnaeus Ahenobarbus. (Marius and Gnaeus are sons of famous men; the families are enemies.) Since she looks Germanic, she’s enslaved by the Romans. Desperate to return home, Amalia’s goal changes when she realizes who Arminius is: the boy kidnapped from the Cherusci who eventually leads the tribes against Rome in the 9 CE Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Is she here to ensure the German tribes win, as they do historically? Her expertise in both judo and engineering helps her gain respect among the Romans, and she and Marius fall in love. However, the path of true love seldom runs smooth for a time-traveler…
This novel blends imperial intrigues, family feuds, culture clashes, and a doozy of a chariot race into a story that’s almost great. Unfortunately, there are pacing problems: for instance, 240 pages into the story, Amalia and Marius fall into each other’s arms – and then four years pass, she’s living happily with Marius, and the fascinating information we should get about her adjusting is left out. I never felt as if I really knew Amalia. Compared to the Roman men and women, she never really springs to life. But despite these flaws, the book’s interesting, and I’m looking forward to reading the next installment of Amalia’s story.
