“You should have trusted me. You should have given me a choice.”
AD 370, Roman frontier province of Noricum. Neither wholly married nor wholly divorced, Julia Bacausa is trapped in the power struggle between the Christian church and her pagan ruler father.
Tribune Lucius Apulius’s career is blighted by his determination to stay faithful to the Roman gods in a Christian empire. Stripped of his command in Britannia, he’s demoted to the backwater of Noricum – and encounters Julia.
Unwittingly, he takes her for a whore. When confronted by who she is, he is overcome with remorse and fear. Despite this disaster, Julia and Lucius are drawn to one another by an irresistible attraction.
But their intensifying bond is broken when Lucius is banished to Rome. Distraught, Julia gambles everything to join him. But a vengeful presence from the past overshadows her perilous journey. Following her heart’s desire brings danger she could never have envisaged…
Interview
What inspired you to start writing?
A bad film! Well, it was the trigger. Although the photography was beautiful, the dialogue and plot were so chopped up that I thought I could do better. Of course, it’s never that easy… But the idea for the setting of Roma Nova had been spinning around in my head for several decades – an imaginary country founded by twelve Roman families towards the end of the Roman Empire and which had survived into the present. I’ve been fascinated by ancient Rome since I was eleven, but as I wanted a woman leading the action – not feasible in the Ancient Roman Empire – I brought my stories into the present. These descendants were just as tough and inventive as their ancestors and had kept their religion and family traditions through the ages, but developed a society where women ruled.
However, I’d been busy with life – university, working, army, marriage, raising a child, and although I’d worked it all out in my head, I’d never imagined setting any of it down on paper. Then came the bad film…
Ninety days later I had a 90,000-word manuscript and realised I had to find out about the publishing world and whether my story was any good. Two years later after classes, courses, conferences and finding a critique writing partner, I had learnt how to construct a novel and send it in for professional assessment. More learning the craft of creative writing and honing the manuscript followed and INCEPTIO, the first of my Roma Nova series, was published. JULIA PRIMA is the tenth.
What was the hardest part about writing this book?
The previous Roma Nova stories had been set in the present and recent past and came under the subgenre of historical fiction known as alternate history where the timeline veers off in a different direction at some point in the past. For Roma Nova, this was in AD 395. JULIA PRIMA took me back to AD 370, before that point of divergence, so is a standard historical novel. Although I researched the background for the earlier books thoroughly, I had to write into the imaginative void, but for JULIA PRIMA, I had the comfort and constraint of acknowledged historical sources.
The most intensive work was checking whether towns, roads and bridges built several hundred years before in, say, Augustus’s reign still existed in AD 370 and pinpointing their correct names (which frequently changed over the centuries!) and locations so I could make maps for the readers.
Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?
Well, it has to be Julia herself as I loved developing her from a rather spoilt and privileged girl who had lost her self-confidence into a young woman toughened by experience and resolving what she must do. As I wrote her in the first person, readers can see how she reacts internally and changes as she gets nearer to her goal.
In contrast, I really enjoyed writing the established character of Aegius, her guide and mentor as more of his past was unpacked and we see how his character became the one we see in the book – the reverse process!
If your book was to be made into a movie, who are the celebrities that would star in it?
Not a definitive choice, but perhaps somebody like Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman would play Julia, with George Clooney as Aegius and Timothée Chalamet as Lucius. Asella? Frances McDormand is my immediate thought – tough, steadfast and passionately loyal.
What do you hope your readers take away from this book?
The enjoyment of escaping to a faraway time and place and becoming engaged in characters with some common, some completely different, values and aims in life. We all love to connect with characters’ secrets, desires and fears which, despite the difference in time period, can mirror our own.
Although much seemed the same as in its golden periods, by the late fourth century the Roman Empire had changed significantly and I hope I have given readers a taste of that change.
Lastly, perhaps readers might be tempted to search out the adventures of Julia’s and Lucius’s descendants in the 20th and 21st century. INCEPTIO or AURELIA are good starting places. For much more about the Roma Nova series, I’d like to invite readers to visit my thriller website at https://alison-morton.com. And do send in any questions about Roma Nova to hello@alison-morton.com!
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Alison Morton
Alison Morton writes award-winning thrillers featuring tough but compassionate heroines. Her nine-book Roma Nova series is set in an imaginary European country where a remnant of the ancient Roman Empire has survived into the 21st century and is ruled by women who face conspiracy, revolution and heartache but with a sharp line in dialogue.
She blends her fascination for Ancient Rome with six years’ military service and a life of reading crime, historical and thriller fiction. On the way, she collected a BA in modern languages and an MA in history.
Alison now lives in Poitou in France, the home of Mélisende, the heroine of her latest two contemporary thrillers, Double Identity and Double Pursuit. Oh, and she’s writing the next Roma Nova story.
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The Whispering Bookworm
Thank you for hosting Alison Morton today, with such a fab interview. xx
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for hosting JULIA PRIMA and me today, Jamie. I loved answering your questions!
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