Adrian Raynor-Krill

During a routine inspection following a relatively minor and apparently uneventful earth tremor along the coastal fault-line north-west of the Bay of Naples, a maintenance team ventures into the deep foundations of a deserted site awaiting redevelopment, ostensibly to perform safety checks on the integrity of the substructure.What they find suggests the tremor was more powerful than at first suspected and the partial destruction of the lower levels has opened up an extensive gallery leading to the centre of the city and, ultimately, a place thought to no longer exist.As part of an extended field trip to gather data for the university where he is a part-time lecturer in the classical antiquity of the Mediterranean, Werner and his new wife, Sophie, gain access to the site under the auspices of the recession-hit Garcia construction group where they retrace the steps of the inspection team. As they progress further and further into the maze of cavernous foundations and supporting structures they come across what appears to be the abandoned and virtually-intact remains of a major Roman underground water cistern and distribution station.Was it financial constraints or the decline of the western empire or something infinitely more sinister that prevented completion of the project? Within the dark and eerie confines of the subterranean depths, Sophie and Werner seek out evidence of another time when they were known to each other but are soon plunged headlong into their former world when the abandoned workings divulge their deadly secret.

The resounding success of the universally - documented Roman Forum construction project has changed Adam and Tyra's lives for ever but their true voyage of inner discovery is only just beginning. In the wake of that unexpected but monumental enlightenment amid the ruined and deserted backstreets of the Via Claudia, it seems life has resumed a semblance of normality once more.As the leaves begin to fall and the days grow noticeably colder and shorter with the imminent onset of another winter, all appears well in their fine country house where the flickering candle flames and blazing log fires bring warmth and comfort on the chill evenings.Within the convivial atmosphere of one of Tyra's elegant dinner parties, their all-seeing and spiritualist friend, Sophie, announces an impending discovery which will not only give them all cause to reflect upon their pasts again but will also see a return trip to Italy and a lonely, isolated place where, it seems, the hand of man has not moved for an eternity.Within weeks of Sophie's prediction a team of young archaeologists stumble, quite by chance, on something which when unearthed and investigated will not only confound them with its intrigue and mysteries and leave them searching for answers, it will have far-reaching consequences for Adam, Tyra and Sophie, plunging the world of medical science and the occult movement into shock and bewilderment.

Adam Grant would appear to have everything a man could wish for and yet, within the opulent lifestyle he has striven to achieve over the years there are forces at work reminding him of a time when the world was a harsher, less forgiving place. A gifted architect with a passion for recreating monuments from antiquity, he begins to search for his true identity. As his past calls to him with a voice that cannot be denied and he seeks to embrace it and learn the truth, inevitably, his wife, the lovely Tyra, becomes drawn into the mystery.In a desperate bid to understand his torment and discover if, as she suspects, they were both known to one another in a different time, Tyra must trust the intuition of their mutual friend, spiritualist and regression therapist and embark upon a painful and emotional journey 2,000 years into the past, to the glory that was 1st century Rome.As a woman of the aristocracy whose father has high political aspirations regardless of the misery and destruction he leaves in his wake, she falls irretrievably in love with Rome's new champion gladiator under the most bizarre yet beautiful circumstances but their class differences and the pain and suffering of others that brought them together also threaten to tear them apart.When their secrecy is compromised and they must face up to an existence of heartache and loneliness without the one they love, the hopelessness and despair of their situation forces them into making a horrific decision where they vow to meet again in the afterlife.For the last time she must witness the bloody spectacle of the gladiatorial games and, ultimately, the execution by her father of the man she would, one day in the far-distant future, take as her husband.