Manda Scott

Boudica: Dreaming the Hound Manda Scott

Manda Scott's Boudica will tell the extraordinary, resounding story of Britain's first and greatest warrior queen, the woman who remains one of the great female icons.

AD 57: much of Britannia has been under Roman occupation for more than 10 years, and tribes pay costly tithes to the emperor in return for the right to continue living on their own lands.

On the sacred isle of Mona, the Boudica or 'Bringer of Victory' as Breaca has long been hailed, now knows for certain that her lover, Caradoc - betrayed, captured and kept hostage in Rome - will never return to her. She leaves Mona, where she and her warriors have been waging a guerrilla war, and takes the fight to the Eceni heartland where it is needed most. With her are her children, Cunomar and Grainne, and her best friend from childhood, ex-lover and dreamer, Airmid.

But the once proud Eceni are a downtrodden and defeated people who are forbidden on pain of death to worship their old gods. Across the sea in Hibernia, Breaca's half-brother, Bán, is struggling to make peace with his fractured past. Soon, provoked by Roman aggression, he will sail to Britannia where he and Breaca will face down the might of Rome in the bloodiest revolt the Western world has ever known.