THE LIGHT BEARER is a time-capsule journey into a world of richly embroidered adventure.

In the fourth year of the reign of the Emperor Nero, a ragged-but-literate slave boy, Endymion, dared to add his own pleas for justice to the words of the great philosopher Seneca, that he was supposed to be copying verbatim for a cruel master. When this happened, the master of the scriptorium had the boy soundly beaten, then sold to a ropemaker. Anecdotes such as this abound in Donna Gillespie's book, THE LIGHT BEARER, set in 50 A.D. and beyond, in the territory bounded by the North Sea and the rivers Elbe, Danube and Rhine.

Richly flavored with historical references, the story is packaged readably, and the plot, action, and painstakingly developed characterizations make it a treasure--even for those who don't put historical tomes high on their reading list.

Gillespie's greatest gift is the way she crafts descriptive passages--phrases never sit static on the pages. These words are fluid grace points that translate instantly into living, active images in the reader's imagination.