Daughter of the Rebellion

Ogle (As Sure as the Sea) unspools a textured narrative of a spirited female warrior in early-fifth-century Rome. Adelgard’s Visigoth father rejects her after news of her forbidden romantic tryst brings shame to her family, spurring her to leave town and join King Alaric’s rebel army. At the rebel camp she meets Telemachus, who teaches her about Jesus, but those lessons are cut short when Adelgard is taken prisoner by Romans and forced to fight as a gladiator. Known as the Amazon, Adelgard revels in the crowd’s adulation but refuses to trust anyone—except, eventually, Felix, a Christian doctor who hates violence but tends to the gladiators to provide for his family. Felix is drawn to Adelgard’s fiery spirit, and works to convince her of her worth in God’s eyes. He also helps Telemachus hatch a plan to rescue some of the Visigoth slaves—Adelgard included—making a future between them seem briefly possible. But when the emperor decides to hold a grand tournament where the gladiators will battle to the death, all their lives are put at risk. Ogle keeps suspense sky-high as Adelgard fights her way through a world filled with threats, while the tender romance between her and Felix nicely offsets the action-packed plot. Fans of Tessa Afshar will want to dive in. (May)