I'll leave aside the professional historians, but if we're tossing in story telling like Tom Holland's, I'd put in a good word for John Maddox Ford's (also named) SPQR series - a dozen or so stories about a fictional character inserted in the critical final years of Roman republic. Best hard-nosed, not excessively modern look at those times I've come across.
> Between them they have done more to promote classical studies than all the professors who try to reach thousands through the electronic programs currently known as massive open online courses (MOOCs).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_the_Romans_with_Mary_Bear...