Back in the days when my family and I lived and worked in Bangladesh, the kids were quite young and that meant plenty of children’s books got read. As they grew, I either read them Young Adult literature (such as the brilliant Wheel of Surya trilogy by Jamila Gavin) or they read such books for themselves.

My daughter and all her friends at the school she attended – and I taught at – they all got into Caroline Lawrence’s super Roman Mysteries series of books. Loving Roman history as I do, I found myself enjoying them too. Our school was in the middle of impoverished rural Bangladesh, so new books were difficult to get hold of. This meant the series came to our library in dribs and drabs and there was always a queue to get the latest (single copy) in the series.

Luckily, these books aren’t difficult to read and so we all read each one within days – or even hours for some of us – and passed it on to the next person waiting. They were very much loved.

However, the school was a religious one and held to high morals. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth book, I think, the book got banned because – so I understand – there was a kiss scene between two young characters. That wasn’t allowed. And so, sadly, the love for these books as a school and the chance to read further was lost.

Recently I was reminded of these books and, on a whim, bought the whole collection, which I was surprised to find came to seventeen books! So, partly in memory of sadly-missed wonderful days of youth, partly to find out exactly which scene it was that caused such consternation to the teacher who banned the book and partly just to finish the whole series off (I hate leaving a series part-read), I am now going through all the books, one after the other, and will review them.

Delightfully, my now-very-much-grown-up daughter is also loving the fact that I’ve bought them all and we’ve agreed to read the books again and swap thoughts along the way. For both of us, this will be a trip down memory lane. The days in Bangladesh were among some of our happiest and I am delighted to read something that takes me back to those days. And besides, neither my daughter nor I can remember exactly what happens in the stories! So it is a good time to re-read, I think.

All of which means, for the next few weeks, this review site will get a bit stuffed with Roman history novels! My apologies in advance if either Roman history or Young Adult fiction isn’t your thing. I will break up the reviews with other books I’m reading too so it won’t be relentless Roman Mysteries but you will have to bear with for a while.

The first review will be later this week and I think I’ll get one to two reviews done each week depending on how busy my schedule is. I hope you enjoy the reviews!

Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.

Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.

D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.

Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 6.9 million times.