Teruel exists and its writers transcend. Examples like those of Javier Sierra o Sebastian Roa they point to that first-rate literary cradle for this Aragonese province. With Javier Sierra half the world enjoys its mysteries with historical grounds. In the case of Roa, and with the History as sustenance, we enjoy a vision of the warlike that marks all kinds of historical vicissitudes.
Succulent plots between territorial, religious or social conflicts; pre-war strategies and hand-to-hand combat. Violence also explains our past when borders depended on new blood ties, more interested political decisions and other types of arbitrariness that could only find redress in the justice of the sword. We can find all of this and much more in a bibliography by Sebastián Roa that is expanding creatively.
Top 3 recommended novels by Sebastián Roa
Nemesis
The injustice was committed by Athens. Athens incited rebellion against Persia and piled up the wood for the fires that engulfed city after city. The Athenian who lit the flame was Ameinias of Eleusis. That is why Athens must also burn. That is why Ameinias must die.
XNUMXth century BC C. Artemisia of Caria is a unique woman. Last of his dynasty, Halicarnassus rules and commands his own warship, the Nemesis. His rise to power has been anything but sweet: fire, terror, mutilation and slavery shook his city and his lineage, marking his destiny. His goal is not easy: to redeem his family name and raise good over evil, right over wrong, truth over lies.
He must find the culprit: an Athenian sailor sailing in a sinister black trireme, the Tauros. Even if he has to face the storms, sink the ships of half Greece and set fire to Athens itself. That will take her through the labyrinth of islands and ports that cross the Aegean Sea, and discover if she has the strength and the will to fulfill her mission. And all under the threat of the impending war between the Persians and the Greeks.
Roa returns to the fascinating history of medical wars, until now starring kings like Leonidas, strategists like Themistocles or generals like Mardonio or Pausanias, but never before by a real, fierce and intelligent woman, sometimes in love, an intrepid navigator who is became the terror of the Greeks. Through a dialogue with Herodotus, Artemisia will tell us about her life since she became the tyrant of Halicarnassus and was about to change the history of the West.
God's army
We are located in the heart of the Almohad Trilogy. In this core part of the series, we enjoy a generous setting and captivating plot development.
Year 1174. The Almohad empire, strengthened after subduing all of Al-Andalus, is preparing to launch its immense armies on the divided Christian kingdoms, whose inhabitants it will force to convert to Islam under penalty of putting them to the sword or making them slaves. Faced with African fanaticism, King Alfonso of Castile tries to achieve a balance that overcomes rivalries between Christians and leads to unity against the common enemy.
En God's army, the plots of passion, intrigue, war and ambition are masterfully intertwined. The constant rivalry between the kings of León and Castilla, aided respectively by the powerful Castro and Lara families, will be sifted by the intervention of a beautiful and cunning noblewoman, Urraca López de Haro, and by maneuvers in the shadow of Queen Eleanor Plantagenet. On the border with Islam, the Christian Ordoño de Aza will find himself caught between his friendship with an Andalusian, Ibn Sanadid, and the fascination aroused in him by Safiyya, daughter of King Wolf and wife of the Almohad prince Yaqub.
Enemies of Sparta
Promaco and Veleka love each other. But he is a simple mercenary of mixed blood, and she belongs to the nobility. They have no choice but to flee in search of the Spartans, whom Promachus admires so much. When a haughty Spartan warrior kidnaps Veleka, Promachus vows to rescue her even if he has to search for her in the heart of Sparta itself. But facing his mighty army is an impossible dream. Or maybe not. In Athens, a handful of exiles conspire. Epaminondas, Pelópidas, Agarista, Plato… Each one is moved by their reasons, but they all share one goal: to recover the democracy seized by Sparta.
Other recommended books by Sebastián Roa…
Without soul. The deed of Simon de Montfort
Gestas there are more than recognized heroes. You just have to let yourself be carried away by the pampering of a historian capable of rescuing us stories that leave us speechless...
1206. After three years in a Syrian desert dungeon, Simon de Montfort returns to Normandy. But the price for freedom has been the renunciation of his own soul, the commission of a horrible act whose consequences will haunt him beyond life, throughout eternity.
Eager to reach his humble country manor, Simon navigates a changing, tempting world until he is reunited with his chaste wife, Alix de Montmorency, and a home that no longer seems his own. Bad fortune, remorse, the fall from grace and the imminent war between France and England sink Simón and Alix deeper every day.
Although his destiny is not to disappear from history, but to shine in the fight against heresy. Thus, the search for redemption will take them from Normandy to the south of France, to a land plagued by chaos, violence and religious rupture. To a divided society, sown with so much hatred that a bountiful harvest of pain and death is expected. To a war in which Simón de Montfort will have to face an undefeated king.
Simón de Montfort, comparable to the Cid in his dazzling military career, is a medieval example of a great warrior and effective commander, despite everything reviled by history, and branded fanatical and bloodthirsty.
