Review: Empire of Time

Empire of Time
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Fifteen years on from the events of NEW POMPEII, and New Rome is cut off from the rest of the world in a new Cold War. The Romans, lead by Calpurnia, have control of the time travel technology, which keeps western governments at bay. But the public at large know nothing of this, and are eager for action to destroy New Rome, a place where slavery and deadly gladiatorial combat flourish. Meanwhile Calpurnia is fending off threats to her control over her people, aided by Decimus Horatius Pullus, the man who was once Nick Houghton Has Nick truly embraced the Roman way of life? Can the Romans harness the power of time travel or will the new world destroy them?

Jurassic Park: Roman Edition continues, and I had really high hopes for it after loving the first book so much. Unfortunately for me, this book fell a bit short of the mark for me. I feel like it's partially because I had high expectations, but there's not the same energy and sense of wonder as I had when reading the first book. 

You're thrown right back in, and I will admit, I struggled to remember exactly how the previous book had ended so it took me a little bit to settle back in. We jumped 15 years on and I feel like it might have been a bit too big of a time jump. With everything combined together I felt like it was a bit too much and we'd missed a book in the middle. 

There's plenty of political intrigue again, Achillia was a badass and I really loved her. I was so fascinated by her and her life! Godfrey really writes the historical aspects and characters fantastically. He really brings history to life and that's what makes these books so believable and realistic. It's my favourite part of the entire book and I'm far more interested in the Romans their lives than Nick, I'm not going to lie. 

There's some characters you really love to hate in this book. Harris, who I wanted to throttle. Waldren who was a complete a-hole. Seriously. This book had a rather large quantity of a-hole characters to be honest. Possibly because of all the political manoeuvring and ploys, it's not conducive to nice, friendly characters who all get on! 

There's some brilliant plot threads and the different narratives combine and intertwine very well. I enjoyed trying to put the pieces together and being surprised until the very end when it all finally came together so brilliantly. My one issue with this was that I did feel like things became overly complicated at some points, and there where some parts that where slow and a tiny bit boring. I feel like there where some bits that didn't really need to be included to be honest. 

All in all, while I did enjoy reading Empire of Time, it fell a bit short for me and didn't live up to the first book. I was genuinely quite devastated by this too as I'd completely loved the first book and it was so original and brilliantly written! A couple of things let this one down, but it still had it's good points too!