The Last King
by Michael Curtis Ford | 
The Fall of Rome
by Michael Curtis Ford | 
Orphan Train
by Christina Baker Kline | 
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon | 
The Invention of Wings
by Sue Monk Kidd | 
Year of Wonders
by Geraldine Brooks | 
The Storyteller
by Jodi Picoult | 
Viking Tales
by Jennie Hall | 
Let the Great World Spin
by Colum McCann | 
The Autobiography of Henry VIII
by Margaret George | 
Sarum
by Edward Rutherfurd | 
Rules of Civility
by Amor Towles | 
One Thousand White Women
by Jim Fergus | 
The Lacuna
by Barbara Kingsolver | 
The Marriage of Opposites
by Alice Hoffman | 
London
by Edward Rutherfurd | 
Of Love and Other Demons
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez | 
The Son
by Philipp Meyer | 
Remarkable Creatures
by Tracy Chevalier | 
The Memoirs of Cleopatra
by Margaret George |
The year 354 A.D.: Julian, a young scholar in Athens, is the last survivor of a bloody political purge that killed his entire family. Unexpectedly summoned to the court of the Emperor Constantius, he fears the worst-only to find himself bearing the ring of Caesar of the Western Empire. Tested by bloody battle and the scepticism of the Roman legions, Julian proves to be a military genius, crushing the German tribes that have threatened Rome for generations. Soon after, defying his own emperor against overwhelming odds, he risks civil war and ultimately seizes the Empire for himself, becoming the most powerful man in the world while still only thirty. Now the dark side of his ambition emerges. Julian discards the Christianity of his boyhood and sets his sights on the greatest conquest of all-the Persian Empire. In Persia, however, his gods and his sanity desert him, and in one swift stroke, the course of history is altered forever. Ranging from the forbidding forests of ancient Gaul to the sweltering sands of Persia, Gods & Legions is a breathtaking historical re-creation of one of the most dangerous periods-and enduring mysteries-of all time.