Carina Mitela is a captain in the Pretorian Guard Special Forces (PGSF), the intelligence and operations service of Roma Nova when we meet her in the first story of HEROICA. But, of course, that’s not all she is. We need to know where she came from, what does she want and what does she fear? What’s stopping her? What does she like? What are her values? What are her strengths and weaknesses?
Her story in HEROICA is set between PERFIDITAS and SUCCESSIO, the third and fourth in her strand of adventures in the Roma Nova thriller series. But before I even started INCEPTIO, the first full-length novel of her adventures, Carina had to go through a ‘birthing’ process.
I had to lay some clues – her backstory
We encounter her on Page 1 of the first book in the series, INCEPTIO, working in the New York Kew Park in the Eastern United States (EUS) as a weekend volunteer. So we know she loves the outdoors and works happily with others. Moreover, she enjoys running and keeping fit.
We learn that she’s not particularly happy or unhappy in her life at that time, ten years before the story in HEROICA. Although she works hard in her day job and is prepared to stick at it, she feels she’s not achieving anything in life. This hints that she’s unsure of her abilities and unsettled, but resilient. The early loss of her parents and being fostered with cold relatives forces her to be self-contained and not a little wary of others. So she needs to feel safe. Part of the urge to protect herself makes her a smartmouth. Although by the time of HEROICA, she’s been settled for several years in Roma Nova and loves serving in the PGSF, she retains some of that personal insecurity.
One of Carina’s characteristics is her strong sense of fairness which she has the courage to put it into action. However, she has a hot temper and makes snap decisions, not always wise ones. Definitely both passionate and fallible!
A brief biography
Born in the Eastern United States (EUS), father William Brown, ex-UK citizen, mother Marina Mitela, daughter of one of the Twelve Families who founded Roma Nova in ancient times.
For her first twelve years, she lived in New Hampshire. Sadly, she lost her mother in a mysterious car accident when she was three, and her father from cancer at twelve. Fostered adequately, but unlovingly, with distant Brown cousins in Nebraska on the edge of the Indigenous Nations’ territories, she left for the autonomous city of New York the day after graduating high school. After several jobs, at the beginning of INCEPTIO she has ended up as an assistant account executive in Bornes & Black Ad Agency.
Physically, she is too tall and angular to be classically pretty, she has an athletic build, blue eyes and red-blonde hair. She doesn’t know it yet, but she bears a striking resemblance to her grandmother, Aurelia, as a young woman.
Over the four books in the Roma Nova series featuring Carina, she retains her basic character traits and values throughout, although how she expresses them and assesses her reactions develop through the stories.
She is only human, after all!
Discover much more about Carina’s story in HEROICA
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. JULIA PRIMA and EXSILIUM, set in the late 4th century, tell the story of Roma Nova’s foundation. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity and Double Pursuit start a new contemporary thriller series. The third, Double Stakes is now out.
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