RETALIO wins a 'Chill with a Book' Readers' Award

The most fearsome reviewers of your book are readers.

They are the ones who shell out their money and, more importantly, devote their precious reading hours to consuming your writing. And if they like your offering and give it a review, they have connected with and appreciated the random thoughts and wierdnesses that inhabit […]

100 years of women at war (in uniform)

Alison in the 1980s

It’s been a hundred years since women were allowed(!) to join the armed forces in the UK. I was very proud of serving my six years and doing all sorts of exciting and interesting things!

Of course, women have been attached to or even commanded armies and navies in […]

Sex and marriage in Roma Nova

Author photo, Venus and Mars, House of Mars And Venus, Pompeii, Naples Museum

Well, yes to sex – they are Romans – but not so much marriage, more informal family arrangements.

Marriage in the majority of cultures has meant one man and one woman, with the woman leaving her father’s family and joining […]