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"...wonderfully written novel."
 --- HistoricalNovelSociety.org

"Chacko's writing style is 
 fast, fluid, and robust."
 --- Kristina O'Donnelly,
author of Korinna, a novel
of Ancient Greece, Rome, and 
Anatolia

"...an amazing work of fiction."
 --- RoundTableReviews.com

About this Book

If you were the man to lead an all-out rebellion against the might of ancient Rome, you would storm out of the East at the head of your army and smash all opposition. To universal acclaim, you would become Lord of the World, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. You would take it as your task to overturn the gods, laws and traditions of the Roman Empire in a furious nonstop revolution. You would explore all the passions and intrigue that unlimited power can offer a young man.

This is your story, told by the people who knew you best.

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About the Author

David is the author of fifteen novels. His books have been called "brilliant and scaring" (Kirkus), and "raw-boned and brutal" (The Detroit News). He is known as "a novelist of talent and power" (Playboy), "a writer of power and intensity" (Publisher's Weekly), and his work as "compelling and unexpected" (Newsweek), "a powerhouse charged with artistic and imaginative feats." (Buffalo Courier-Express)

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Feel free to use all or part of the following, and edit to suit. This content was prepared for your use. We ask no acknowledgement of any kind.

David Chacko's fourteenth novel, The Severan Prophecies, is an exciting and convincing narrative of one of strangest and most misunderstood figures in ancient history. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was fourteen years old when he ascended to the throne and eighteen when he died, but during his brief period of public life he set the Roman world afire.

The story is told by a high-ranking professional soldier named Marcellus, whose career parallels the four emperors of the Severan dynasty. Beginning in Brittania in the last days of the reign of Septimus Severus, the story shadows the bloody continuation as his demented son Caracalla assumes the throne. When the narrative leaps to Syria, we learn of Caracalla's assassination. The sudden jeopardy of the members of the royal family who remain alive propels a headlong race for survival.

The restoration of the dynasty becomes their goal. Marcellus leads the young boy Varius into a storm of intrigue, action, and finally battle that ends with the defeat of the usurper Macrinus outside Antioch. Thus does teenage Varius become Lord of the World.

All the settings in the Middle East and Europe are well rendered by Chacko, who lives in the places where the story passes. The characters are even more sharply drawn, a real feat when passing from rulers in their puberty to beautiful mothers who will do anything to keep their place at court to grandmothers who are the real power behind the throne. The political maneuvers grow to Machiavellian heights as the young emperor devotes most of his time to administering the spiritual needs of his empire-wide flock and his own pleasure.

Finally he runs amok, careening from the outrageous to the fantastic while he commands Marcellus to implement his needs. The havoc that a boy in the prime of his adolescence visits on the empire is furious. It's enough to say that the end is bloody and the few bodies that will finally stand are the shocked remnants of his royal family and his friend nearly to the end, Marcellus.

The Severan Prophecies was published by Foremost Press. It can be ordered through local bookstores and at ForemostPress.com, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com.
ISBN 10: 0-9789704-6-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-9789704-6-8
444 pp, $18.97

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