Goodreads asked Andrew Knighton:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Andrew Knighton Ocean Gods, Roman Blades was inspired by two things.

The first was wondering what ancient Rome would have been like if the gods really had responded to people's prayers. In this story, the gods can provide powerful magic, but the protagonist Varus doesn't have access to that as he hates the gods. As a legionary, he's constantly faced with dangers far beyond what he can handle, and that makes for an exciting story.

The other source of inspiration was some research I did eight years ago for a story about pirates. During that reading, I learned that some of the earliest recorded pirates were Thracian sailors harassing Roman shipping, and that dealing with them was part of what gave Pompey his power. That was a great fit for this story, which will eventually provide a prolog to a series about politics and violence in a fantasy version of the dying days of the Roman Republic.

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