An excellent mix of historical fiction and fantasy.
I loved this gripping and highly entertaining story that kept me hooked.
Excellent world building and character development, a plot that kept me hooked.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I like the idea behind the book, and I feel the Legion of the Occult can read better in an original version. Unfortunately, the story takes a lot of time to get going, introduce key players, and raise the stakes.It was solid but I had to force myself to read the first 35-30 % of the book.

Legion of the Occult has a great plot, but unfortunately, the way the book was set up, really wasn't for me and I ended up not finishing the book (66%) :(

Worldbuilding:
Was great. Of course, the Roman Empire was a great and vast territory, but the author managed it so we got bite-size chunks of info about it instead of everything at once. Great attention to details and very descriptive.

Character development:
Was good. We meet the important characters when just when they are about to be 'drafted' into the Legion. Let me go straight into Pacing and Flow for a second because this is where I really had issues :( it goes from present, to past, to somewhere in between, to present, ... it's just all over the place and I found it to be really difficult (and slightly annoying) to keep track of dates.
I found it difficult to notice any real character development because of the frequent switching of the timeline, so I really don't know if they have grown and matured, how their hopes and dreams changed etc. It could of course be that this was all explained in the 34% of the story that I didn't read.

I voluntarily read an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley and all in all I really wished I could just get past all the time-jumps. The writing was good, entertaining and the plot was excellent... unfortunately, not for me.

If you like reading about ancient Rome and all the mysticism from that time, I encourage you to try out a sample chapter and see if it's something you like! Enjoy :)

"Legion of the Occult" is an excellent idea. I liked the writing style and the story. It all felt a little bit muddled though. The flow of the story kept hiccoughing (if you see what I mean) so I didn't enjoy this book as much as I might have. It hasn't put me off reading more of this author's work. Good, but not great.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advance copy to review. This review is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

3.5 stars

I really enjoyed many of the characters in this book:
Iorus
Lucretius
Madron/Felix
Jago
Dryantilla

Just a few favs - BUT - as this is a grim dark book, don’t love people too much because they will die!

I didn’t like the gladiator animal parts as y’all know. And there is content warning for mentions of rape, child abuse (sexual and physical) infant killings. Well killings of all kinds. Basically, if you have read or watched Game of Thrones, there you go.

(Uncorrected proof quote)

The centurion looked at the reflection of himself in the boy’s green eyes and for a moment saw images of burning huts, bodies immersed in pools of blood and severed heads lying in the mud. And then he seemed to hear a lament that had soon turned into a long sob and that look, broken but proud, that prayed without ever begging.


I enjoyed most of the book. I was a little lost here and there but y’all know that’s how I am at times. I would definitely read a second book as I want to see what happens with my characters and stuff going on in this world.

I would recommend to my grimdark, fantasy friends.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Head Of Zeus for a digital copy of this book.

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

First of all, please let me appreciate the author for the immense work and research that went into the creation of this work. This is objectively 4-4.2* book for a person who is better acquainted with the 1st-century Roman history, however, I am afraid my knowledge of the Roman history of that period, though not bad, but was not enough to fully appreciate this work and understand without rereading after ending it. Unfortunately, we had so many characters being introduced to scenes from the beginning, it was hard to understand from the beginning who is who and what function they are to carry. I appreciate the time and geographical jumps, however, if some of time periods from the very end were remotely explained in the beginning, I am sure the reader would have a bit easier on me. I am big history non-fiction and historical fiction reader, yet I do think the author created this work for a very specific niche of readers and this is not for a broad public unless one decides to start the book again after finishing it to understand the first part better.
Language and historical reference: 5 stars for sure, history is referenced perfectly.
However the evolution of the story, plot, and interest keep, unfortunately, brought this book down to 3.2* for me.
I guess, maybe, more introductions in the beginning of chapters, or 2-word introduction of characters we meet in chapters and possibly a couple of chapters of earlier years, in the beginning, may make the read easier to comprehend.
Absolutely adored the saying and the silver lining that goes throughout the novel, that with the change of mirrors, the sight doesn't change.

Unstoppable and Lethal, they move across the battlefield like ghosts. They are soldiers of the Legio Occulta.
This paragraph is what got my attention but unfortunately it took nearly 50% of the book to get me hooked.
There's a lot of characters and back story at the beginning which usually isn't an issue, but I found myself constantly going back to the start of the chapters to see where abouts in the timeline that part of the story was set.
As I said above, I was about 50% into the story before I figured out what was happening, and started to enjoy it.

This was wonderfully fascinating story. These characters were well-written and their magical tale drew me in from the beginning and held me hostage until the last word was read.

*I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book provided by NetGalley*

This was an excellent book that sated my desire to read a really good tale of the roman legions but at the same time adding the mystique of the occult, I love books detailing the period of the Roman Empire but have never read a book that really piqued my interest with the sinister before, I heartily recommend this book unreservedly