Alison Morton's Thrillers

Building Roma Nova – Part 1

When I began writing the adventures of Karen/Carina, readers became very interested in Roma Nova and its people; some wanted to visit and others wanted to sign up to live there! I thought I’d share some of the questions they’ve asked…

Why does the heroine change name?
Carina is Karen’s real name. Her mother, who ran off to marry William Brown and live in the Eastern United States, registered Carina’s birth at the Roma Nova legation in Washington. But as their child was being brought up in the Eastern United States, her parents decided to anglicise her name to Karen. Of course, things changed when Kren was forced to flee to Roma Nova in INCEPTIO when a bad guy tried to terminate her.

What does our heroine do on her day off?
Swims, watches movies and sleeps!

What do Roma Novans eat?
Anything! Well, standard European food, but with a bias to a Mediterranean diet, not forgetting the Roman staples of beans, olives, fish and honey. But I don’t think Carina’s diet includes garum, the traditional Roman fermented fish sauce which sounds pretty yucky.

As for drink, Carina’s family farm at Castra Lucilla does produce some very popular white wine and to the east of the capital, the famous Brancadorum champagne is renowned.

Why do the characters swear so much, and by so many gods?
Many of my characters are in the police service or the military, particularly the Praetorian Guard Special Forces and they swear a lot between themselves – sorry! I have reduced the amount you would normally expect by about 70%.

Using the Roman (and sometimes Greek) gods means I’m free from using the more Anglo-Saxon expressions in many thriller and crime stories which can upset readers. Yes, it’s a cop-out in one way, but authentic for Roma Novans in their society!

And who else would they swear by if not Juno, Mars, Jupiter or Mercury? “Mars’ balls!” is especially used in moments of surprise or frustration

Juno and Venus are particularly favoured by women. The bar owner, Dania, who becomes Carina’s friend, loves using “Venus’ tits!” on (in)appropriate moments. Romans were and are fairly forthright.

What’s Roma Nova’s history?
Oh, this goes back to the end of the 4th century! You could read this or find out far more in JULIA PRIMA and EXSILIUM where you can plunge into the whole story.

How does the heroine learn Latin so quickly?
Her mother spoke Latin to her as a baby and toddler, and she went to Latin classes when younger, a little like the heroine in My Big Fat Greek Wedding who went to Greek class every Saturday.

Karen’s Latin’s rusty, but it comes back… If a language is learned in the early years, it does tend to stick in the back of the brain and the ability resurfaces when it’s triggered by the person being immersed again in that language environment. I know this from personal experience with French which I started at age five.

Of course, our heroine has two invaluable aids: a smart mouthed teenager (Aelia in the Washington Legation), and the fascinating Conrad…

Updated January 2024: 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, will be out in February 2024.

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The Roman home front

Our first encounter with Romans is often a film or TV series depicting soldiers marching in armour, being tough, shouting and thrusting a sword into some barbarian in a dark, wet and enemy-infested wood. Or perhaps we think about the ruins left of magnificent imperial or public buildings?

But what about the calmer side of Roman life? Where did the civilian Romans live? The very rich and/or powerful lived in palaces or extensive town villas, but the middle-class merchants who had done well, or professional families, lived in something like this:

Model of a Roman townhouse (domus)

Atrium	formal reception hall
Ala	wings/large alcoves opening from the atrium
Cubiculum	small room/bedroom
Culina	kitchen
Exedra	garden room
Impluvium	sunken part of the atrium in to catch and carry away rainwater
Oecus	salon/large dining room
Peristylium	colonnaded garden
Taverna	(wine) shop
Tablinium	office/study
Triclinium	dining room
Vestibulum	entrance hall

Impluvium and atrium

This is based on a house lived in by a middle ranking Roman in Pompeii.

Peristylium

Most families, in more modest circumstances, lived in one or cramped two rooms in apartment blocks of varying stability called insulae. Although kitchen and latrines could be shared, the blocks often had running water and sanitation. Rooms could be owned or rented. They were built in timber, mud brick, and later primitive concrete and supposed to be restricted in height to about 20 metres. Some rare examples survive in Rome at the foot of the Capitoline Hill and in Ostia Antica, Rome’s ancient port.

Insulae (apartment blocks) at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, Rome

Insulae in Ostia Antica

Carina and her family in 21st century Roma Nova live in a large townhouse still called a domus – Domus Mitelarum – which has an atrium with an oculus – a bull’s eye – in the roof to let in light, but no longer rainwater – it’s been glazed over as has the impluvium. Roma Nova is an Alpine country and nobody wants snow in their main living room! But there are alcoves (ala) to sit in and a peristyle garden in the old part of the house.

A house is very much part of a book’s setting, but it always expresses its inhabitants’ ideas and attitudes, however grand or lowly the building may be.

Model and map courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology via http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/house.html

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.

Two Gold Medals!

Completely unexpected, but thrilling news – two Roma Nova books have been given a gold medal each in the much esteemed Coffee Pot Book Club Book of the Year awards for historical fiction.

Even I was rendered speechless for at least five minutes. This book club focuses on historical fiction across all sub-genres: JULIA PRIMA won in the Ancient World category and INCEPTIO in Alternative History.

What do awards mean?

I wrote a post over six years ago when I had only a few books out and I was keen to accumulate those lovely badges and accreditations. And in that last word lies a big fat clue.

Recognition, validation, acknowledgement of your ability and achievement – these are the reasons we love to gain awards. When self- or indie publishing first emerged, there were no ways of showing which books were worth readers paying and which were not. Readers were and are the final judges, of course.

Indie published books are a firm part of the book world; some have been developed for the screen such as Andy Weir’s The Martian, others have even made their authors millionaires. But as with traditional publishing, most authors are not at those heights. However, most competitions and award schemes in the early days were closed to indies (😢 Some still are.).

To remedy the lack of ways in which to indicate high quality indie reads, a variety of award schemes emerged in order to sift out the not-so-good from the excellent. Some such as Discovering Diamonds Reviews and Chill with a Book run by prominent writers have since closed as they devoured a lot of time and needed full-time dedicated work. Others like the venerable Indie BRAG now charge an admin fee to cover time and costs, while the Historical Novel Society now mixes everything together.

But that doesn’t negate the awards/accolades given by them in the past.

The Coffee Pot Book Club Book of the Year awards have gone from strength to strength in nurturing and promoting historical fiction. The authors strive to be the best – who doesn’t like a shiny medal? – and readers can be reassured they will get a good quality experience from reading these books.

My thanks go to Cathie Dunn and dedicated team in managing these awards. It must involve the judgement of Solomon!

Meanwhile, I’ve off to polish these lovely medals…