'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 Downie

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 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 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.