{ "item_title" : "Playthings of the Gods", "item_author" : [" Michael Dimatteo "], "item_description" : "Men are the playthings of the gods. Rome is where the game is played. 238 AD. Jquell Servatus lies face-down in the African desert. He's been beaten and left bleeding, certainly to die. He is a young Optio of Rome, the son of the Emperor's must trusted centurion and finest warrior. Someone wanted him dead, and Jaquell intends to learn who. Two years earlier, on the Germanian frontier, Emperor Maximinus Thrax raised him up. Then Thrax sent him to the island of Meninx with one order: collect the taxes. The people were already struggling under the Roman yoke, and this further insult created more tension. In Rome, Senator Tacitus Terrelius nurses a grievance against the Emperor and a plan, patient as a spider. On Meninx, the Senator's sister, Sophonisba and her defender, Honoratus, wait to see which way the young Jaquell will break. A healer named Tafat pulls Jaquell back from the edge of death, and a strip of blue silk tells him she knows something about him that he does not. Duty or mercy. Father or blood. An Emperor who cannot be reasoned with and a Senate that will not be denied. Jaquell must decided who he is before the Year of the Six Emperors decides for him. Playthings of the Gods is historical fiction about the human cost of events that survive mostly as political history. It covers the Gordian revolt, the sieges of Aquileia, and the men and women ground between them.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/9/79/816/465/9798164659189_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "11.99", "online_price" : "11.99", "our_price" : "11.99", "club_price" : "11.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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