At first I couldn’t decide to give two or three stars. Maybe because of the praises others reviewers had given to this book I was disappointed to discover that it was average story. The characters are not remarkable, the plot is simple, little or almost no suspense, (I guessed who is spy and who traitor easy and early), Cato and Lavinia scenes reminded me of a big lipped alligator moment, it was quite pointless as if author thought he must involve some sort of romance.It was historical bits and battle scenes who made me to finish the book plus towards the end story slowly started to improve. I’m not interested to read second book in the series...But I might.