 It’s no longer a secret!
In late summer, I wrote a story. I know, I’m always writing stories, but this one was written during a heatwave, in between Roman festivals and while I was knee deep in my new novel.
I was invited to take part in a collaborative project called Historical Stories of EXILE – a collection of short stories from a range of historical periods with the common theme of people making the enormous leap of leaving their homeland. Some exiles are voluntary, others forced. More below!
The glorious thing is that I find myself in the best historical fiction company I could wish for: Annie Whitehead, J.G. Harlond, Helen Hollick, Anna Belfrage, Elizabeth Chadwick, Loretta Livingstone, Elizabeth St.John, Charlene Newcomb, Marian L Thorpe, Amy Maroney, Cathie Dunn and Cryssa Bazos.
Deborah Swift is giving us a brilliant introduction.
So what’s it about?
Exile – a risky defiance, a perilous journey, a family’s tragic choice or an individual’s final gamble to live?
Exile – voluntary or enforced, a falling-out between friends, a lost first love, a prejudiced betrayal, or the only way to survive persecution?
Here’s an excerpt from my own contribution, My Sister
Rome AD 395. Marcellus Varus (narrating) is attending a dinner party with his sister, Flavola. He’s chatting with friends Lucius Apulius and Gaius Mitelus before eating.
‘How’s your sister taking it?’ Gaius asked me, nodding to the group of women where Flavola stood with a sullen expression.
‘Ah. Well, I…’
‘What?’
‘I haven’t exactly told her yet.’
Lucius looked at me in disbelief. Gaius collapsed laughing. The group of women turned and stared at the outburst of noise. Even the dozen or so other men at the back of the atrium sent puzzled looks at us. After a heartbeat, they returned to their talking. Maelia looked across the room and frowned at us. Lucius took my arm and hustled me into a side room. Gaius followed, still chuckling.
Lucius pushed me down onto a stool.
‘Are you seriously saying that you haven’t told Flavola you’re uprooting her from Rome, from all she knows, and going into voluntary exile?’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘it was hard enough to get her here tonight. She doesn’t get on with Maelia.’
‘You’re wrong, Marcellus,’ Gaius said. ‘She doesn’t get on with anybody.’
‘Don’t poke at my sister, Gaius. You’re not the easiest piece in the pack.’
So that’s all going to go well…
Back to the full book
Thirteen authors (We’re not superstitious!) have written exclusive short stories on the theme of exile. Some are based on true history, others are speculative fiction. All mine the depths of human emotions: fear, hope, love, and the fortitude to survive.
Join an inspiring Anglo-Saxon queen of Wales, a courageous Norwegian falconer, and a family fleeing back in time to escape the prospect of a ruthless future.
Oppose the law with the legendary Doones of Exmoor, or defy the odds with two brave WWII exiles.
Meet a Roman apprehensively planning exile to preserve the ‘old ways’, and a real Swedish prince forcibly expelled in heart-wrenching circumstances.
Thrill to a story based on the legend of Robin Hood, sail with a queen of Cyprus determined to regain her rightful throne.
Escape religious persecution, discover the heart-rending truth behind the settlement of Massachusetts and experience the early years that would, eventually, lead to the founding of Normandy.
Experience the stirring of first love, and as an exclusive treat special guest author, Elizabeth Chadwick, reveals a tale about the 12th-century’s heiress, Isabelle de Clare, and the Greatest Knight of all time – William Marshal.
With an introduction by multi-award-winning author Deborah Swift, enjoy these tales of exile across the ages. Some are hopeful, some sad, some romantic, some tragic, but all explore the indomitable spirit of resolute, unforgettable characters.
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Available now on Amazon! https://mybook.to/StoriesOfExile (ebook and paperback)
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Clockwise from top left: Cryssa Bass, Anna Belfrage, Elizabeth Chadwick, Cathie Dunn, J G Harlond, Amy Maroney, Alison Morton, Marian L Thorpe, Annie Whitehead, Deborah Swift, Elizabeth St.John, Charlene Newcomb, Loretta Livingstone, Helen Hollick.
The beautiful cover and graphics are by Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics.
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. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, a new Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, 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. You’ll also 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!
 Underground tunnel in Naples To my horror, I spotted that I hadn’t written a post since September. You have my apologies, my sincere ones.
But I have a good excuse. Well, I think it’s a good excuse. I’ve been in the last quarter of the 4th century (again!) but this time at the very end – the crunch time of AD 395.
EXSILUM, the sequel to JULIA PRIMA, stands at 98,000 words in its first draft and I have another 10-15,000 words to go. I had no idea it was going to be so long, but it does describe an epic venture.
I had a really nice schedule mapped out, but unfortunately, Covid 19 intervened which led me to think about plagues ancient and modern. I’m just so pleased I live now and not in the second half of the 2nd century.
Anyway, the schedule was shot, so now I’m racing to catch up.
The second half of the 4th century has not left us a vast number of sources
Ammianus Marcellinus, born c. 330, died c. 391 – 400, a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (before Procopius). His work, known as the Res gestae, chronicled the history of Rome from Emperor Nerva in AD 96 to the death of Valens at the disastrous Battle of Adrianople in AD 378, although unfortunately only sections covering AD 353 to 378 survive.
Zosimus (active 490s–510s) was a Greek historian living in Constantinople during the reign of the eastern Roman Emperor Anastasius I (491–518). According to Photius, he was a comes, a count, and held the office of advocate of the imperial treasury. Zosimus was known for condemning Constantine’s rejection of the traditional polytheistic religion.
My favourite modern historian is Peter Heather who has written several works on the fall of the Western Roman Empire. He’s a bit of a rebel as contrary to several historians of the late 20th century, he contends that it was the movements of ‘barbarians’ in the Migration Period which led to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
Along with Bryan Ward-Perkins (who also writes good books!) and other University of Oxford scholars, Heather belongs to a new generation of historians who in the early 2000s started to challenge theories on Late Antiquity that had been prevalent since the 1970s. These older theories generally denied the importance of ethnic identity, barbarian migrations and Roman decline in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
I recommend these two of his books: The Fall of the Roman Empire: a New History of Rome and the Barbarians (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300 (Knopf, 2023).
And, of course, I can’t fail to recommend Lionel Casson’s Travel in the Ancient World (John Hopkins Paperbacks, 1994 ed.)
What else? Oh yes, maps again. I know, I’m obsessed with maps as they tells us so much, not only about roads, rivers and general geography, but history and what impact humans have had on the places they have or do live.Whatever did we do without Google Maps for tracing routes, countryside, rivers and mountain passes?
And the wonderful Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire.
Routes often correspond to the Earth’s surface – there is often only one way through the mountains. Romans, of course, just wanted to get troops from A to B and facilitate trade, so produced the familiar straight roads wherever possible. Tracking down place names has been fun, especially when they change over the period of Roman rule.
And then there are the usual: food, clothes, weapons, people’s names, but above all mindset. Romans of the 4th century had some values and behaviour that hadn’t changed from those in G.Julius Caesar’s time. Others most definitely had. But in the 21st century, our focus is again different. Climbing into the mind of a late 4th century Roman is a mind-bending experience in itself!
It’s all coming together now and I hope the new book will be available in ebook and paperback in January. Watch this space for updates!
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. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, a new Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, 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. You’ll also 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!
It’s about books. No, it’s about stories of people, their aspirations, their dilemmas, their loves and their adventures. It’s about sacrifice, passion and loyalty, about betrayal, power-hunger and redemption. And it takes the imagination on one of the most intriguing ‘what if’ stories ever…
Roma Nova is an imaginary country (except in the author’s head and in those of similar enthusiasts) which bears some physical resemblance to a small European country but nothing like or any other otherwise. Developing along an alternative timeline from ours, it’s a survivor from the mess at the end of the Roman Empire, its people value strength, service and loyalty.
Women have always been prominent from the first day they buckled on armour and stood side by side with their men to defend their tiny country. They run the government, businesses and families. But men are in no way disadvantaged.
Two ‘strands’ centre round two tough but fallible heroines – Carina and Aurelia – both from the leading Mitela family. They are so similar in character, but their temperaments are different. Coffee is a must for both, but Aurelia likes a French brandy and Carina a chilled Castra Lucillan white wine.
 Carina, warrior, councillor and mother Aurelia is a ‘bone-and blood’ Roma Novan brought up with Roman values that have endured for over fifteen hundred years. Carina, brought up in the Eastern United States, but tied by blood to Aurelia, has a less sure start, but she soon learns to become a solid Roma Novan, finding herself completely at ease in that society although she trips up on occasion.
 Aurelia Mitela at different stages of her life in the series Despite their service to the state in the elite Praetorian Guard and later as agents, then in government, both women find enduring love. However, that goes anything but smoothly for both of them and their children.
Carina’s strand takes place in the ‘present plus’ and running underneath her adventures are themes – empowerment (INCEPTIO), acceptance of the real world (CARINA, a novella), betrayal (PERFIDITAS )and nemesis (SUCCESSIO).
Aurelia features in Carina’s story – she’s her grandmother after all – but as a young woman in the late 1960s (AURELIA) and as a diplomat/investigator in the mid 1970s (NEXUS). In her forties in the 1980s (INSURRECTIO and RETALIO), she fights against an amoral criminal, later tyrant who threatens to destroy Roma Nova.
And other books? ROMA NOVA EXTRA is a collection of shorter stories, uncovering hidden glimpses of our characters from AD 370 to 2029.
 Lucius Apulius and Julia Bacausa And JULIA PRIMA set in AD 370 takes us back to the first meeting between Lucius Apulius and Julia Becausa in Roman Noricum. Readers kept asking me to write the foundation story of Roma Nova. So I did. But I had two much story for one book. The other half of that story followed in EXSILIUM – the epic journey that led to the foundation of Roma Nova in AD 395.
 Roma Nova typical scenes today So if you’re looking for escapist thrillers with a Roman tone, special forces women, epic love, slightly off-piste heroines, loyalty, a sense of doing the right thing even if it’s not quite legal, a family with bad eggs and true heroes, tough men who have vulnerabilities, snappy dialogue and some provocations, you’re in the right place.
That’s a very quick run down.
Updated 2025: 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. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, 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!
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