A-Z Blogging: A is for...Aurelia and Alison Morton

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Aurelia

Throughout April I have invited 26 authors who had been selected as Editor's Choice by the
 Historical Novel Society Indie Reviews to help me out with the 2016 A-Z Blog Challenge...

Except to be a little different I interviewed 

their leading Character/s...

Today's Character is from :

Until April 9th! 
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An A-Z Bloggng Bargain! 

HH : Hello! I believe you exist in Alison Morton’s novel, AURELIA. Oh, that’s your name, too. Would you like to introduce yourself – who you are, what you do? 
AM : Salve! I’m twenty-eight and was born into the Mitela family in Roma Nova and my given praenomen is Aurelia, the same as that of Gaius Julius Caesar’s mother in ancient Rome. Currently, I serve as a major in the Praetorian Guard Special Forces.

HH : Where and when are you? Are you a real historical person or did your author create you?
AM : It’s the 1960s here in Roma Nova. Ours is a small country, wedged in between New Austria, the Italian Federation and Slovenia, so a lot of mountains with forests and high pastures, some valleys and low-lying areas near the rivers. Our city – we don’t have a different name for it, just ‘the city’ – is very old, some parts even going back to the foundation in the late fourth century. We pride ourselves on keeping our ancestors’ gods and way of life and holding to Roman values and culture. Well, it had to change when Roma Nova was threatened with extinction in the first years. Sisters and daughters and then wives had to put on armour and fight alongside the men in order to survive. The records show those were grim times.

Am I real? (smiles) I am to the author, but it would be presumptuous to say I’m a famous person.

Photo courtesy of Britannia
  www.durolitum.co.uk'

HH. In a few brief sentences: what is the novel you feature in about?
AM : Hm, well, it is safe to talk confidentially, isn’t it? You must have got through security to be asking these questions...

 My mother is giving me the Hades of a time saying I should have another child, another heir, and wants me to pair up with Caius Tellus. I’d rather throw myself off the Senate House roof. And I don’t want him within a hundred metres of my young daughter. Oh, he’s clever, charming and so on, but I think he’s a taker in life and I’m convinced he’s up to something that could threaten Roma Nova. I’m packing to go north to Berlin to investigate the silver smuggling and I know in my bones he’s going to be involved…

HH :  I ‘met’ my pirate, Jesamiah Acorne on a beach in Dorset, England -  how did your author meet up with you?
AM : Juno knows! I think it was when she was writing her three stories about my granddaughter, Carina. I’m in my seventies in those books – what a thought! Apparently, the author wanted to stick her nose into what happened in my younger days, especially about the Great Rebellion, the traitorous Caius and my lost love. So she decided to write three more books; AURELIA is the first of those.

HH : Tell me about one or two of the other characters who feature with you - husband, wife, family? Who are some of the nice characters and who is the nastiest one? 
AM : Let’s get my nemesis out of the way first. I can’t say it better than in my explanation to a colleague:
‘You’ve never met Caius Tellus, have you?’ I said and leant back in my chair and crossed my arms. ‘He’s charming, manipulative and a complete bastard. He has natural sexual charm and the instincts of a predator. Unfortunately, he’s intelligent with it, but somehow, the Fates forgot to give him the least sense of good and evil when he was born. They also forgot to tell him how to think beyond himself.’

On a brighter note, the centre of my life is my daughter Marina.
‘She was so fragile; fine red-brown hair and a delicate face, light brown eyes like a frightened rabbit, not the bright Mitela blue like mine and my mother’s. Never robust, Marina had coughed and wheezed her way through infancy, floored by the least infection.’ And ‘Soft as rose petals, her skin shone, her flesh a little plumper than when I’d left her. Pale freckles dotted her nose and forearms. But her smile was pure sunshine.
If only my mother had lived, she would have had the pleasure of seeing this glorious child bloom.’

Who else? Ah, Tertullius Plico is the cynical intelligence chief. Well, I’ve never met one who wasn’t, have you? He’s a grumpy old sod, but fiercely loyal but he gives me a hard time. He’s one of the fearsome Imperatrix Justina’s senior secretaries and reports on external affairs direct to her, so wields considerable, if hidden, power.

And Miklós, the smuggler?
‘If I thought the horse was impressive, the rider was no less so; a tall figure, and supple as he moved with the horse, his strong-featured face was without expression but his whole person exuded confidence.’ And ‘I looked up at the rider. He bent forward, gave me a half-bow. His black curly hair touched the collar of his beige shirt, but not the neck of the leather waistcoat he wore over it. Dark, slightly worn moleskin breeches were tucked into black scuffed boots. As I stared at him, warmth rushed up my neck. He smiled, knowingly. Pluto, was I so obvious?

HH : What is your favourite scene in the book?
AM : The final one!

HH : What is your least favourite? Maybe a frightening or sad moment that your author wrote.
AM : When that bastard Caius honed in on my daughter…

HH : What are you most proud of about your author?
AM : She understands my values and motivations and doesn’t make judgements. Her portrayal of people and important events in Roma Nova attracts plaudits from her many fine and discerning readers. Although deprecating praise, she has won awards and accolades – a B.R.A.G. Medallion for each of her books, Editor’s Choice in The Bookseller and this shortlisting in the 2016 prize. I salute her. Macte!

HH : Has your author written  other books about you? If not, about other characters?
How do you feel about your author going off with someone else!
AM : Oh, she keeps it in the family, which is right and proper; Roma Novan society is traditionally based on the larger family which includes cousins, household and farm staff.  INCEPTIO, PERFIDITAS and SUCCESSIO feature my granddaughter Carina’s adventures, her tangled love life and how she has to deal with the tough threats facing Roma Nova in the 21st century.

I’m so proud of how she transfers from her unfulfilled existence in the Eastern United States to take up a life here in Roma Nova; it suits her so much better. And even though it’s a rocky path, she desperately loves Conrad, my protégée from the post-Rebellion days. If only she could keep her temper in check…

Scriptrix Alison Morton

HH : As a character if you could travel to a time and place different to your own fictional setting  where and when would you go?
AM : Ha! Well, although they were desperately hard times, I’d volunteer to go back and help the Roma Nova founders in the late fourth century. Imagine it. They’d been persecuted and hounded out of ancient Rome by the Christian emperor Theodosius, they set up a new colonia in the mountains and then had to fight off all-comers during the Great Migrations and years afterwards. They needed every spare gladius they could lay their hands on and had to recruit daughters and sisters. I would be honoured to have helped.

Thank you that was really interesting!
Now where can readers of this A-Z Blog Challenge find out more about you and your author?

Connect with Alison on her Roma Nova site: http://alison-morton.com
Facebook author page:  https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alison_morton @alison-morton
Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5783095.Alison_Morton

Buying links for AURELIA (multiple retailers/formats):
http://alison-morton.com/books-2/aurelia/where-to-buy-aurelia/

Amazon universal link: http://mybook.to/AURELIA

Here is the company we will be keeping on this 

A-Z Blog Challenge!

APRIL

A 1^st  Friday - Aurelia  - Alison Morton

B 2^nd Saturday  - Bloodie Bones - Lucienne Boyce

C 4^th Monday - Man in the Canary Waistcoat Susan Grossey

D 5^th Tuesday - Dubh-Linn  - James Nelson

E 6^th Wednesday - Evergreen In Red And White - Steven Kay

F 7^th Thursday - Fortune’sFool- David Blixt

G 8^th Friday - Gift For The Magus  - Linda Proud

H 9^th Saturday - The Love Letter of John Henry Holliday - Mary Fancher

I 11^th Monday - In Liberty’s Wake - Alexandra Norland

J 12^th Tuesday - Jacobites' Apprentice  - Dave McCall

K 13^th Wednesday - Khamsin- Inge Borg

L 14^th Thursday - Luck Bringer   - Nick Brown

M 15^th Friday -  Murder at Cirey   - Cheryl Sawyer

N 16^th Saturday - A Newfound Land  - Anna Belfrage

O 18^th Monday - Out Of Time  - Loretta Livingstone

P 19^th Tuesday  - Pirate Code  - Helen Hollick

Q 20^th Wednesday - To Be A Queen – Annie Whitehead

R 21^st Thursday  - The Spirit Room - Marschel Paul

S 22^nd Friday - Sower Of The Seeds Of Dreams - Bill Page

T 23^rd Saturday  -Tristan & Iseult - Jane Dixon Smith

U 25^th Monday  - A Just And Upright Man - John Lynch

V 26^th Tuesday - Victoria Blake – Far Away  

W 27^th Wednesday  - When Sorrows Come  - Maria Dziedzan

X 28^th Thursday – The FlaX flower – AmandaMaclean

Y 29^th Friday - Young, Josa - Sail upon The Land

Z 30^th Saturday  OZgur Sahin The Wrath of Brotherhood

So call back tomorrow 

To meet the next exciting Character! 

(unless it is Sunday - in which case, I'll have something different 
but just as interesting !)