 Here’s a taster from Revolution?, the first story in HEROICA
Roma Nova, 2020
‘You are joking!’
‘You think subversive activity threatening Roma Nova is a joke?’ Legate Conradus Mitelus, head of the Praetorian Guard Special Forces, and for good or bad, also my husband, frowned at me. We’d been at a concert the previous night, headlined by Antonia Canora. Her sultry contralto voice and boho appearance, allied with the sheer emotion of her delivery, had made it an outstanding spectacle. I’d felt drained by the end of it. Although I’d drunk a beakerful of the ginger and malt restorative first thing this morning, my head was still fragile. The last thing I could do with was a briefing meeting about the potential overthrow of my country. I know preventing such things was our job as Praetorians, but at that precise moment, I could hardly prevent a yawn from ballooning up my throat.
‘No, of course not,’ I said hastily and glanced at Centurion Marcus Flavius for support. He didn’t show the least flicker of emotion on his face, just polite attention to what the legate was saying. ‘But surely this is just somebody letting off steam,’ I continued. Nobody with half a brain would believe them.’
‘Unfortunately, Captain,’ Conrad said, reminding me of my place in the military hierarchy, ‘a number of brainless idiots appear to demonstrate the opposite.’
‘I apologise for my outburst. Sir,’ I added, remembering we were in a formal environment in the PGSF headquarters and that here he was my commanding officer. ‘But I’m shocked to hear such a thing is starting to spread. I’ve read accounts online and in my grandmother’s newspapers, but I thought it was just some crazies spouting lies.’ Apart from being the location of the national Roma Nova Air Force base, Brancadorum was the agricultural back end of nowhere.
Like most Western countries, our little nation allowed free expression as long as it wasn’t hate speech or incitement to racial prejudice or deterioration into a full-blown riot.
‘Subversion comes in many forms. Twisting minds seems to be the flavour of the moment, especially in the east.’ He looked away. The early spring sunshine coming through the armoured glass floor-to-ceiling window made a pale yellow pool on his desk, reflected on the tight lines of his face. The regulation cream walls of his large office were broken up by several bookshelves, some prints and maps and a display cupboard. The little gold eagle I’d bought him at Christie’s on our previous trip to London glistened behind its glass doors with the same early morning light and grim expression.
‘If I may, sir?’ Flavius raised his hand. ‘Captain Mitela is not the only one who’s surprised. I was comparing notes with an air force colleague about the upcoming all-arms training exercise and she expressed the same concern. Apparently, some rabble-rouser in the forum there has been attracting a reasonable crowd – around two hundred or so.’
‘What was he saying?’
‘A load of lies, but with tiny germs of truth about archaic systems and Roma Nova’s imperial structure being out of date and undemocratic. He called for a people’s republic.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘There’s always one. But we’re a constitutional monarchy now. I know that in theory Imperatrix Silvia has more power than many rulers, but she still has to work within the Senate and Representatives’ framework. Even the Ancients’ republic eventually became an empire, not the other way round.’
‘That didn’t always go so well,’ Flavius said sourly.
‘But there were some good periods: the pax romana lasted two hundred years.’ I was the optimistic sort. ‘Well, maybe not at the end in the fifth century,’ I added.
‘Apparently, this rabble-rouser – name of Clodius Novus – has a core group around him,’ the legate read from his screen. ‘And before either of you say it, the name is obviously a pseudonym, trying to hint at a parallel with Publius Clodius Pulcher, the old Republican political mob leader.’
‘He was a nasty piece of work, wasn’t he, sir?’ Flavius said.
‘Yes, a violent manipulator, typical of the gangster type of factionalism in the late Republic. If he hadn’t been killed by his rival Milo, the gods know what he’d have gone on to do’
‘No sign of a latter-day Milo?’ I asked, furiously trying to remember all the details of the history of that time.
Conrad rubbed his forehead at the hairline – a sign he was troubled. And I didn’t think it was about my lack of historical knowledge.
‘No, thank goodness – he was just another thuggish political agitator, after all. Between them and their corrupt practices and constant incitement to riot they made Ancient Rome intolerable. Anyway, that was then. We certainly don’t want a repeat now.’
‘What exactly have these agitators been doing apart from making a few ranty speeches?’ I said.
Conrad consulted his screen for a moment before switching his gaze back to us.
‘He and his group have been digging up dirt of every kind – mostly fabricated – and circulating it as truths the authorities have been hiding from ordinary people,’ he said. ‘According to rumours, the public meetings are becoming more like rallies.’
‘But surely people will see through it?’ I saw his normally serious face wore a more strained expression than usual.
‘It seems not,’ he replied.
‘Aren’t you going to ask the Brancadorum custodes to intervene?’
‘Ah, this is where it becomes delicate. I contacted Silenus Fornax, a former PGSF guard, who retired to a small farm near Brancadorum, which he bought with his ex-service grant. His children are grown and work here in the city. His wife died a few years ago. He now runs the local branch of the old comrades’ association.’
‘So, an upright citizen!’
Conrad frowned at me. ‘Fornax was a staunch, if dull, long-serving soldier, totally loyal. But I haven’t heard back from him for a couple of days.’
‘No phone call or message, sir?’ Flavius asked.
‘He’s not a fan of technology – he uses a dumb phone when he remembers to charge it.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, I asked him to put out feelers about what was going on in Brancadorum. He’s not the subtlest person, but he knows the area and people. I didn’t want to alert the custodes as it might compromise his investigation, which is informal at best. The other thing is that to our knowledge no law’s been broken. So far, nobody’s filed a complaint. If the scarabs go in heavy-handed, the organisers will screech repression of civil liberties.’
‘Then what is our mission?’ I asked.
‘I want you to designate a small team to go to Brancadorum, make contact with Fornax and covertly observe events.’ He tapped on his keyboard and our phones pinged Fornax’s photo – a typical grizzled vet with a steady stare into the camera. ‘I’m also recommissioning the group which counters political movements attempting to undermine Roma Nova. But we need some hard facts. That is the mission, effective immediately.’
‘I’ll put a team together straightaway. Centurion Flavius can lead on this.’ I raised an eyebrow in Flavius’s direction. He nodded.
‘Only a few, maximum three, or it will make these people suspicious.’ He shot a hard look at me. ‘Actually, Carina, go yourself.’
————–
HEROICA: Three women, three centuries, three reckonings
Publication date: 14 May 2026
Pre-order now:
Ebook: Amazon Apple Kobo B&N Nook
Paperback: Waterstones Barnes & Noble Other retailers
————–
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.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. As a result, you’ll be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
If you enjoyed this post, do share it with your friends!
HEROICA has a strange origin. Revolution?, the first part, started as a little story I wanted to write for myself – an indulgence. Then it grew and grew. The heroine, Carina, goes off piste as usual (see the first four Roma Nova thrillers!) and her investigation became ever more complicated and the ‘short story’ became a much longer one, almost a novella. Then I thought up a twist in the tail. There’s always a price to pay and/or a secret to uncover in Roma Nova stories!
Throughout the series, the two heroines, Carina and Aurelia, are or become, courageous, determined and completely loyal to Roma Nova. But occasionally, we hear references to past history and to previous generations of the Mitela family. What was the influence of that family on Roma Nova’s affairs throughout the centuries or on wider European events?
I began to think about some of the major turning points in European history. Could the Mitelae have played an important part? I thoroughly enjoyed writing a short story for the 1066 Turned UpsideDown anthology when an 11th century Mitela was instrumental in preventing the Norman Conquest. Although I had to firmly put my research hat on my head, that was fun!
Suppose they had been involved in other key historical events? Suppose a Mitela had been key to the success of a battle or a political revolution? Or its failure? There are so many turning points to choose from! Erik Durschmied’s The Hinge Factor (since retitled How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History) is a fascinating read about the tiny and not so tiny interventions in events that push the history of the world down an entirely different path than it would or should or could have gone.
In Honoria’s Battle, set in 1683, Christian Europe saw the Moslem Ottomans as an existential threat. The latter had conquered much of South East Europe including next door Hungary and were besieging the great bastion of Vienna, the seat of the Holy Roman emperors. It was vital that Vienna did not fall as it would open the gateway to the rest of Europe. People have argued about this since the 17th century, but at the time, this was as they saw it. So Honoria Mitela goes to Vienna to help.
The dual time line story, The Idealist, is set in the present and the mid 19th century, a period that fascinates me – the time of revolutions in various European countries. 1848 is the year that stands out, but the years before and after were equally busy! Change is always interesting, however it turns out.These are points in history when we see what humans are capable of, whether it’s cruelty or courage. Giuseppe Mazzini was a revolutionary politician, but he was also a philosopher active at the time Italy was going through the Risorgimento – the resurgence of the idea of a united Italy.
But it took several decades for that reunification to be complete. In 1870, forces of the Kingdom of Italy (founded 1861) took control of the city of Rome itself and of the Papal States. After a plebiscite held on 2 October 1870, Rome was officially made capital of Italy on 3 February 1871, completing the unification of Italy. History on the Italian peninsula is always about the capture of Rome, it seems…
—————–
You can pre-order the ebook of HEROICA now:
Amazon (universal): https://mybook.to/HEROICA_RomaNova
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/heroica-5
Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id6761337368
B&N Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/heroica-alison-morton/1149795262?ean=2940185019030
Books2Read: https://books2read.com/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.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. As a result, you’ll be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
If you enjoyed this post, do share it with your friends!
 Armed Amazon, her shield decorates a Gorgon head; Tondo of Attic red-figure kylix, c. 500 BCE, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Berlin (Public domain) The Amazons stride through ancient myth with spears, bows, and a reputation that unsettled the ancient world. These warrior women, said to live beyond the edges of the known Greek world near the Black Sea, were described as superb horse-archers, fiercely independent, and stubbornly resistant to male control.
Whether they really existed as a distinct people is debated, but archaeology from the Eurasian steppe has uncovered graves of armed women among Scythian and Sarmatian cultures—enough to suggest that the legend may have grown from encounters with societies where women did, at times, ride and fight. We all know how the rumour mill works and I’m sure it was the same in the ancient world.
To the Greeks, Amazons were both fascination and warning: a mirror held up to their own gender order. To the Romans, who inherited Greek myth along with so much else, Amazons were something more complicated – a symbol of chaos, exoticism, courage and a distinct challenge to Roman assumptions about power, family and citizenship.
Romans and Amazons
Diving deeper… Romans encountered Amazons first through Greek art and literature, then through their own retellings. In the epics and histories circulating in the Roman world, Amazons appear at pivotal moments. The Amazon queen Penthesilea fights at Troy and falls to Achilles – a scene beloved by artists for its tragic intensity. The hero Heracles must seize the belt of the Amazon queen Hippolyta as one of his labours. These stories circulated widely in Roman mosaics, frescoes, and carved sarcophagi.
 The Dying Amazon, 2nd century AD copy of a Greek original of the 2nd century BC. National Archaeological Museum, Naples (Author photo) Roman writers such as Virgil included Amazon figures in their works. In the Aeneid, the warrior maiden Camilla is not an Amazon by name, but she is unmistakably cast in their image – swift, deadly, devoted to martial life but ultimately doomed. Camilla is admired, even honoured, but she cannot be allowed to survive into the orderly Roman future Virgil is constructing. She belongs to a wild, heroic past.
That is telling about ancient Roman attitude.
Romans admired courage wherever they found it; it’s deep-rooted in their culture. However, they were deeply invested in a social order in which women’s power was expressed through family, lineage and influence behind the scenes – not on the battlefield. We have many stories about that influence and about Roman women taking a courageous stand or demonstrating incredible fortitude.
But the Amazon was an altogether different type of woman. She fought openly, rejected male authority and lived outside the social and civic structures that Romans believed defined civilisation. To a Roman mind, that placed her somewhere between noble savage and existential threat.
Yet there was also respect. The Amazon was not mocked. She was formidable. Roman art often depicts Amazons as dignified, athletic, and beautifully equipped. They are enemies worthy of heroes. The very care taken in their portrayal suggests a grudging admiration for their martial skill.
In short: the Romans did not dismiss the Amazons. They contained them—by placing them in myth, in the distant past, or on the far edges of the world.
Why did the idea trouble them?
Because Ancient Rome itself had a complicated relationship with women and power. Roman matrons could own property, run households, influence politics, and shape dynasties. Women like Livia, Agrippina, and Julia Domna exerted enormous influence. But it was influence within a framework. The Amazon suggested what might happen if that framework vanished.
The Amazon was a thought experiment: What if women did not accept the roles assigned to them? What if they claimed the spear as well as the spindle?
The answer, in Roman storytelling, was usually tragedy.
A Roma Novan perspective on Amazons
Now imagine a modern, Roman-descended society such as Roma Nova where the society evolved differently over the centuries. Women have, out of the practical needs for survival and then thriving, held formal authority, commanded troops, and shaped state policy not from behind curtains but from the centre of power.
To Roma Novans, Amazons would not be aberrations. They would be ancestors of the imagination.
A Roma Novan historian might smile at the old Roman discomfort. Of course, women can fight. Of course, they can command. Of course, courage and discipline are not gendered traits. The real question, from a Roma Novan perspective, would not be why Amazons existed, but why other societies found them so unsettling.
Roma Nova would likely interpret Amazon legends not as fantasy, but as distorted memory – garbled reports of cultures that organised themselves differently from Greece and Rome. Where Romans saw myth, Roma Novans might see early evidence that martial ability among women is neither new nor unnatural – merely suppressed or ignored in certain traditions.
And they would probably have a certain dry amusement at Virgil’s Camilla; admired, but conveniently removed by death before she could in any way complicate the Roman future.
In Roma Nova, she would have been promoted.
What women in warrior roles bring to the fight
Beyond myth and fiction, the modern world has demonstrated something the Amazons hinted at: when women serve in military roles, they bring distinct strengths alongside shared human qualities of courage, endurance, and skill. I can endorse this from my own six years in uniform.
1. Adaptability and problem-solving
Women entering historically male spaces often develop acute situational awareness and adaptive thinking. This translates well to asymmetric warfare, intelligence work, and complex operational environments.
2. Cohesion and communication
Mixed units frequently report improved communication and team cohesion. Women are often trained – socially, culturally and professionally – to read group dynamics closely, a valuable trait under stress.
3. De-escalation and cultural access
In modern conflict zones, female soldiers can interact with local women in societies where male soldiers cannot. This provides intelligence, builds trust and reduces friction with civilian populations.
4. Psychological resilience
Those who have had to prove themselves repeatedly tend to develop formidable mental resilience. The need to earn one’s place can forge exceptional discipline and commitment. (Nothing new under the sun about that, I hear you say.)
5. A broader leadership model
Women leaders often employ collaborative leadership styles alongside decisiveness, broadening the tactical and strategic options available to a unit.
None of this suggests women fight like Amazons of myth. Rather, it shows that capability in war is human, not male.
The enduring power of the Amazon idea
The Amazon endures because she represents a possibility that societies have alternately feared, admired, suppressed and rediscovered something very powerful: that women can be visible, effective agents of force. For the Romans, she had to remain safely in legend. For Roma Novans, she would be a familiar concept – less a mythic outsider than a symbolic foremother.
And for us, she remains a reminder that history is not only what happened, but what people believed could not happen.
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.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. As a result, you’ll be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
If you enjoyed this post, do share it with your friends!
|
Subscribe to Blog via Email
Join 37 other subscribers.
Buy AURELIA from Apple!
UK
US
|
