Welcome to my new weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think that I will really enjoy.  Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them.

In this week’s Waiting on Wednesday review I will be looking at the ninth and final book in Robert Fabbri’s dark and wildly entertaining Vespasian series, Emperor of Rome. Emperor of Rome is currently set to be released in Australia in February 2019 and it will be one of the main historical fiction books I’ll be trying to get in the next few months. I have been a huge fan of this series for a few years now, and have been particularly impressed at how Fabbri has managed to write the nine excellent books in the series in just eight years in addition to the connected standalone novel Arminius: The Limits of Empire.

The Vespasian series follows the early life of the future Emperor, Vespasian, as he attempts to survive and prosper in a Rome ruled by a series of increasingly unstable and power-hungry Emperors.  What distinguishes the Vespasian series from all the other Roman historical fiction series is the focus on the darker and more salacious stories of ancient Rome, with some intriguing mystical elements also thrown in. These absolutely insane but in many cases very real historical stories works incredibly well with the political backstabbing and detailed Roman battle sequences to create a series of highly enjoyable and very entertaining novels.

Emperor of Rome will finally see Vespasian make his claim to the throne after years of existing in the shadow of crazy and incompetent Emperors and has a lot of potential as the final book in this series.  There are some great historical moments and events that Fabbri can mine in this final book, including the fall of Nero, the chaos of the Year of the Four Emperors and Vespasian’s final bid for power.  I am really looking forward to seeing how Fabbri uses all these events in his final book and I have high hopes that the author’s signature style will once again make this book stand out from all the other Roman historical fiction novels being released in 2019.