Simon S J A Turney books

A Roman Adventure Reading Order

Agricola Reading Order

Anthologies

Collections

Knights Templar Reading Order

Legion XXII Reading Order

Marius’ Mules Reading Order

Non-Fiction

Praetorian Reading Order

Rider of Rome

Rise of Emperors Reading Order

Short Stories/Novellas

Standalone Novels

Tales of the Empire Reading Order

The Aspects of History Short Story Collections Reading Order

The Damned Emperors Reading Order

The Ottoman Cycle Reading Order

Wolves of Odin Reading Order

S.J.A. Turney is a Yorkshire-born historical fiction author with a degree in Classical History from the Open University. Before writing full time, he worked in fields ranging from IT to car sales. His childhood fascination with history started through visits to Roman sites with his grandfather, and he later joined the Deva Victrix Roman re-enactment group in Chester. He maintains roman-sites.org, a visual catalog of Roman sites across Europe.

Turney’s career began with two self-published novels in 2009 — the fantasy Interregnum (Tales of the Empire) and the first Marius’ Mules book, which became a bestseller and launched his flagship seventeen-book series about Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. From that Roman military foundation, he has expanded across periods and settings: the Praetorian series follows a young guardsman through the corrupt court of Emperor Commodus, the Knights Templar books cover the Reconquista in medieval Spain, and the Wolves of Odin series tracks a Viking warband through the twilight of Norse paganism around AD 1040.

His Damned Emperors novels take a revisionist approach to rulers who suffered damnatio memoriae — official erasure after death — presenting Caligula, Commodus, Domitian, and Caracalla as more complex than their traditional reputations suggest. He has also co-authored the Rise of Emperors trilogy with Gordon Doherty, covering the rivalry between Constantine and Maxentius. Across all his work, Turney writes from ground level about soldiers, guards, and common people caught up in the machinery of empires.