Two More Thrillers To Come From Cheops Books LLC:

Cheops Books LLC will soon publish two more historical thrillers by Dora Benley, Inn at the Crossroads and Pliny: A Novel.

Lizette receives an urgent missive from her mother and sister. They need rescued. The British under the Duke of Wellington are invading Waterloo in preparation for the Battle.

When Lizette gets to Waterloo, she finds that her mother and sister have fled to Brussels. The crazy Duchess of Richmond has decided to have a grand ball on the eve of the battle, the soldiers be damned. Her mother and sister, seamstresses, are sewing ballgowns for the event.

Gaston, Lizette’s husband’s only son at the Inn at the Crossroads, shows up and threatens his stepmother. He will drag her home if she does not get information for the cause of the Emperor Napoleon. She is to dance with the British officers, including Edward Ware’s great-grandfather, and report to him. But little does Gaston realize the complications that he has created.

Lizette is arrested and thrown in jail as a spy. Will Gaston be able to rescue her? Will he be able to help Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo? Read Inn at the Crossroads, a romantic historical thriller.

Who was Pliny the Elder?

Pliny the Elder, or Gaius Plinius Secundus, was an ancient Roman scientist, essayist, and thinker, probably the greatest mind of the first century AD. He had an office right next door to what later became the Porta Nigra in Trier.

What was he doing there, hundreds of miles away from his home in Rome? Trier was the oldest Roman city in Germany. He had been appointed Governor of the Province of Germany probably by the Emperor Vespasian and his son, the Emperor Titus. No doubt he studied the birds there as well as the flora and fauna since he was the first to write an encyclopedia called the Natural History, which was influential for centuries.

He was carrying on business as usual here early in the summer of 79 AD before packing his bags and returning home for a summer at the seaside south of Rome at one of his villas near the Vesuvius Volcano which unknown to any mortal that summer was about to erupt.

According to legend that is how Pliny died. He was leading an expedition to save those too near the volcano when the volcano sent a rain of ash down upon him. Italian archaeologist now think they may have discovered his remains in a ship in the Bay of Naples near the volcano. See article on the website.

But the novel offers a different explanation for his mysterious disappearance. He was being pursued by German warriors for writing a derisive work about their peoples and culture called the Germania.

But did he escape or not? Pliny: A Novel may present surprising answers. It is the latest book in the Edward Ware Thrillers at War Series.