Russell Whitfield was born in Shepherds Bush in 1971. An only child, he was raised in Hounslow, West London, but has since escaped to Ham in Surrey.

Russell has had an (almost) life long fascination with ancient Greece and Rome, sparked by seeing the The Three Hundred Spartans on ITV in the seventies. Educated to A-Level, he did not complete college, preferring instead to seek fame and fortune in a heavy metal band.

Sadly, fame and fortune were not forthcoming and a career in telesales beckoned. A series of jobs followed culminating in the heady heights of 'content editor' for a large multi-national. Russ is married to Sally, and they have one daughter, Samantha.

Gladiatrix is Russ's first novel. He's currently working on a sequel.

A self-confessed geek, Russ loves watching DVD's, reading comic books and historical fiction novels. And he has been known to play Traveller and Dungeons & Dragons, but that was a very long time ago.

In an attempt to stave off an ever increasing beer-gut, Russ tries to do kickboxing, but has thus far not made much of an impression on his club-mates - or his beer-gut. He used to train in Wing Chun Kung Fu (where he also failed to make an impression on his club-mates). As part of the research for Gladiatrix, Russ also joined the Ludus Gladiatorius re-enactment group where he learned to fight as a Thracian-style gladiator.

80's heavy metal is Russ's music of choice, though he was also in a goth band and thus has the obligatory Sisters of Mercy and Mission CD's in his collection. He also thinks Girls Aloud are brilliant and actually entered a Heat magazine competition to meet them.

He didn't win.