Overview: The Day of the Labyrinth: The Blind Seer and the Gift of Love: A Novel by author Roger Haydon Mitchell is a story of when embodied love meets empire in a fantastic history of friends and companions of Constantine the Great.

Verdict: For readers age 9 to 90, this fast-moving adventure novel tracks the fantastic history of a diverse group of companions in their attempt to subvert the Roman Empire with justice and love.

Grappling with the realities of war, violence and selfish ambition as they interface with peace, friendship and belonging, it investigates the potential of love as an alternative way of being.

In what is a truly fascinating, wholly engrossing and thoroughly captivating labyrinth into which we instantly find ourselves enraptured by, the story, amongst other things, superbly, and in some cases, diligently reflects the themes of the theological, philosophical, historical and political substances either on show or being examined.

Sure there are numerous moments where the reader finds themselves a little waylaid within the passionate research given to the defined understanding of the inextricable cogs between the church and all forms of empire, but if you allow yourself the time to embrace such prose, you will soon become accustomed to its dedication to a source (which leads to a smoother reading and understanding as you then progress).

Not just a story that brings for an historical narrative that bores and snores its way off the pages, yet one that takes the time to translate the subjects that obviously have fascinated the author for the longest of time. That means we get allowed a more genuinely proposed access to these subjects which are at the heart of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Inclusive of back and forth’s that diligently link the Roman Empire to Turkey and Scotland, and all through the aforementioned blind Seer from the turn of the 4th century, sure the book is historical fiction, but my goodness, the culture clashes combined with, at times, angst-ridden family relationships, fall all too close to a reality I myself already inhabit!

And that alone made reading this book a must-have for me, if only to discover if the Angels and Beatrice could bring forth a a genuine sense of connected reality for me to spiritually traverse, and thus could lead to dinner time debates - instead of quietness, glowing screens or just arguments round here. [Spoiler: It actually did and still does!]

About the Author - Roger Haydon Mitchell is an activist and advocate for the politics of love, or kenarchy. He is an honorary research fellow in the Lancaster University Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities and political theologian with the Westminster Theological Centre. He lives in Morecambe Bay on the north west coast of England.

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