Erskine has built a solid literary reputation with her spellbinding weaving of history and the paranormal in a whole raft of ingenious and intelligent adventure stories, but recent books have fallen a little flat.

And so the arrival of the enchanting Celtic Princess Eigon is a welcome reminder of the enviable talents of the mistress of the time travel novel from whose pen flowed the memorable Lady of Hay.

The Warrior's Princess takes readers back to the court of King Caratacus in Wales and on to the dangerous portals of Rome where the emperor Nero is waging a war of persecution on the Christians.

The action-packed plot involves Erskine's usual seamless interplay between past and present - and a marvellous imagining of characters real and fictional.

Eigon certainly existed but whether she was the daughter of the great Welsh king is, as Erskine admits, 'on the cusp between history and legend' and merely the peg from which she has teased out the thread of her story.

And what a story it is! The author uses her tried and tested formula of relating events through the parallel lives of two central characters - one from the present and one from the past.

Jess, a teacher living in London, is attacked by someone she senses knows her well. She flees to her sister's house in the Welsh borders to recuperate but is disturbed by the cries of a mysterious child.

Two thousand years before, the valley below the house was the scene of a great battle between Caratacus and the invading Romans.

The proud warrior king was captured and taken as a prisoner to Rome with his wife and daughter, Princess Eigon.

Jess finds herself compelled to investigate Eigon's story and, as the Welsh house ceases to be the peaceful sanctuary she had intended, she decides to visit Rome and dig deeper.

It is only in the Eternal City that Jess can finally unravel the mystery of Eigon's astonishing life but in doing so, she is drawn in more closely to her own tormentor.

Jess discovers that the young Eigon grew into a striking woman with a powerful gift of healing but, like her heroine and nemesis, Jess starts to take risks which put her and all who love her into terrible danger...

Tales of passion, intrigue and the paranormal come naturally to Erskine and with the added ingredients of spine-chilling suspense and masterful historical detail, The Warrior's Princess cannot fail to please.

This is Erskine at her very best!

(HarperCollins, hardback, £18.99)