Javelin Thrower - Paperback

by Joe Burns (Photographer), Robin Martin (Editor)

Speculative-historical fiction that reimagines the clash of Caesar and Pompey's armies following the crossing of the Rubicon. A young Roman recruit's skill with a javelin changes the course of his and many other lives in this debut novel by a short short-story prize winner. The story's protagonist, Lucius Pontius, is levied as a scribe in the service of Rome's legendary Marcus Cicero, and faces danger from the land and sea, complicated by the illicit affections of the senator's daughter, and jeopardized by the knowledge of Caesar's forged will.

Author Biography

Anthony Michael Villanueva is a retired nurse anesthetist with thirty years of combined combat and civilian trauma care. His father and father in law were survivors of the Normandy beach landing depicted in Saving Private Ryan (father-in-law was a medic). The author and his father had many discussions about the "what if's" of that morning on Omaha Beach. Historically, the battle could have gone in any direction depending on circumstances beyond mortal control. Anthony earned his B.S. in Anesthesia from George Washington University, but it was his affiliation at the University of Texas in an associate faculty position teaching the history of anesthesia that he developed and honed his interest in the past. He now enjoys a quiet retirement in Folsom, CA, which has given him the time to work on his writing and play with history as it might have been.