Carol Ashby

Author Bio:

Carol Ashby has been a professional writer for most of her life, but her articles and books were about lasers and compound semiconductors (the electronics that make cell phones, laser pointers, and LED displays work). She still writes about light, but her Light in the Empire series tells stories of difficult friendships and life-changing decisions in dangerous times, where forgiveness and love open hearts to discover their own faith in Christ. Her fascination with the Roman Empire was born during her first middle-school Latin class. A research career in New Mexico inspires her to get every historical detail right so she can spin stories that make her readers feel like they’re living under the Caesars themselves.

Crushed Hopes and Hopeful Beginnings (Light in the Empire)

Crushed Hopes and Hopeful Beginnings: a Roman-era adventure with dangerous choices, unlikely friendships, and world views in conflict. Can God work all things for good if you don’t even think he’s real? Lusario was content in Cyrene as part of the Philandros household. After he returns from serving…

Truth and Honor (Light in the Empire)

Is truth worth the price if it costs you everything? For Tribune Glabrio, descended from three consuls of Rome and determined to be the fourth, commanding the troops policing Carthago appears ideal for hastening his political rise. Arriving from Rome with the secretly Christian Sartorus as his aide,…

What Matters Most (Light in the Empire)

When faced with impossible choices, how do you decide what matters most? For ten years, the incorruptible Tribune Titianus enforced Rome’s laws. He’s four days from leaving the Urban Cohort to teach at his brother-in-law Kaeso’s school when Emperor Hadrian and the Praetorian Prefect draft him…

More Than Honor (Light in the Empire)

Duty and honor had anchored his life, but only truth could set him free. Devotion to duty and dogged determination make Tribune Titianus the most feared investigator of the Urban Cohort. Honor drives him to hunt down anyone who breaks Roman law, but it becomes personal when Lenaeus, his old tutor, is…

Hope's Reward (Light in the Empire)

Must the secrets we hide destroy our hope for a future? For a gladiator slave, each time you step on the sand, it’s kill or die. When Ursus decides to follow Jesus, he must choose to die the next time he’s ordered to fight…or run away. He runs, taking again his childhood name, Matti. But he isn’t…

Honor Bound (Light in the Empire)

Honor had forced him to act. Time would tell if he’d regret it. Marcus Brutus owns estates, ships, and gladiator schools that increase his fortune daily, but his greatest treasures are his honor and his wife. When she reveals her faith in Jesus before dying after the birth of their son, he’s consumed…

Hope Unchained (Light in the Empire)

Can the deepest loss bring the greatest gain? Rome’s conquering army took Ariana’s family and freedom, but nothing can take her faith in Jesus. When she rescues a tribune’s wife from certain death, her reward is freedom and a chance to free her brother and sister. But first she must catch up with…

True Freedom (Light in the Empire)

The chains we cannot see can be the hardest ones to break. When Aulus runs up a gambling debt to his father’s political enemy, he’s desperate to pay it off before his father returns to Rome. His best friend Marcus suggests they fake the kidnapping of Aulus’s sister Julia and use the ransom money.…

Second Chances (Light in the Empire)

Must the shadows of the past destroy the hope of the future? In AD 122, Cornelia Scipia, proud daughter of one of Rome's noblest families, learns her adulterous husband plans to betroth their daughter to the vicious son of his best friend. Over her dead body! Cornelia divorces him, reclaims her enormous…

Faithful (Light in the Empire)

Is the price of true friendship ever too high? In AD 122, Adela, the fiery daughter of a Germanic chieftain, is kidnapped and taken across the Roman frontier to be sold as a slave. When horse-trader Otto wins her while gambling with her kidnappers, he entrusts her to his friend and trading partner,…

The Legacy (Light in the Empire)

When Rome has taken everything, what’s left for a man to give? Betrayed by a ruthless son who’ll do anything for power and wealth, Publius Drusus faces death with an unanswered prayer―that his treasured daughter, Claudia, and honorable son, Titus, will someday share his faith. But who will lead…

Blind Ambition (Light in the Empire)

Sometimes you have to almost die to discover how you want to live. It’s AD 114 in the Roman province of Germania Superior, and being a Christian carries a death sentence. Tribune Decimus Lentulus is on the fast track for a stellar political career back in Rome. When he’s robbed, blinded, and left…

Forgiven (Light in the Empire)

Are some wounds too deep to forgive? With a ruthless father who murdered for the family inheritance, Marcus Drusus plans to do the same. In AD 122, Marcus follows his brother Lucius to Judaea and plots to frame a zealot for his older brother's death. But the plan goes awry, and Lucius is rescued by…