From pirate to emperor

Pirates have fascinated people for several centuries, but the fictional world of pirates, represented in novels and movies, is somewhat different to the reality, but where does fact end and fiction begin?

Helen Hollick has written a series of nautical voyages based around her fictional pirate, Captain Jesamiah Acorne and his ship, Sea Witch, but […]

Guns n’ things in Roma Nova

This could be a tricky subject, but if your stories have spies, special forces, military and special police units with a robust Roman attitude, you are going to get weapons of one sort or another. Anything else would be unrealistic.

However, my books are about people, not a way of seeing […]

Our friends(?) the Praetorians

Inventing a military unit like the 21st century Praetorian Guard Special Forces in my Roma Nova books was an interesting challenge!

I chose to use the old Roman name because, although later corrupt and power broking, they were the courageous, battle-hardened elite who guarded the Ancient Roman emperor’s life with theirs. And service to the […]