Let us Talk of Many Things; of Books and Queens and Pirates, of Mystery and Kings...: August 2022

Saturday 27 August 2022

Alison Morton - Julia Prima #MyLetsTalkGuest PART ONE

#MyLetsTalkGuest

Welcome to my Blog!
Wander through wonderful worlds real and fictional,
meet interesting people, visit exciting places
and find a few good books to enjoy along the way!

Let’s start with the burning question… You’re known as a writer of alternative history thrillers featuring your modern Praetorian heroines, Carina and Aurelia. What made you go back to the 4^th century to write about the founders of Roma Nova?

JULIA PRIMA was inspired by my readers. They wanted to know how and why the 21st century Roma Nova was established back in the 4th century. Most of all, they were more than curious about the people who had stood up for their values in the face of lethal threats and eventually torn themselves away from everything they knew.

Like any country Roma Nova has its own history. In our real timeline, who today doesn’t have an older relative who remembers ‘the war’? We know exactly which war they are talking about because it was such a formative experience for that generation and the following one. At school, we learn about 1066, American Independence in 1776, the Battle of Waterloo, events long in our past but which have an impact on our countries today. To give Roma Nova a depth and some collective memory, I invented a history for it with roots in real events in the 4th century.

In the rest of the Roma Nova series, even in the first hundred pages of INCEPTIO, the first Roma Nova thriller, the modern day characters often refer to Julia Bacausa and Lucius Apulius – their legendary ancestors – so when readers said they were thirsty for more, I knew I had to tell their story.

the Arch of Trajan at Carsulae
on the Via Flaminia.

Tell us about these ancestors

Julia Bacausa, just twenty, is the passionate and independent (translation: headstrong) daughter of the pagan Celtic ruler of the Virunum region in the Roman province of Noricum (approximately present day Austria). She’s miserable and tense after a failed marriage and although legally divorced under Roman law, there is no religious annulment possible from her Christian ex-husband, the local bishop’s nephew. Her father is wary of the growing political power exerted by the new religion. If she re-marries now in Virunum, it would cause a social and political uproar. She can see no future life for herself, let alone any hope of love.

Lucius Apulius is in his mid-twenties, the son of a long-established senatorial family, but that’s a problem in itself. Emperor Diocletian’s reforms in the late Roman Empire reinforced the promotion of equites (roughly the lower tier of aristocrats/upper middle class) who were increasingly professionalised and taking over the military and administrative roles of governing the empire. Diocletian excluded the senatorial class from all senior military commands and from all top administrative posts except in Italy as he considered them entitled and useless. However, while true in numerous cases, some senatorial sons like Lucius (and his friend Gaius Mitelus) are nevertheless keen to serve and are making a success of military careers.

In fact, Lucius is a rising star on Count Theodosius’s staff, taking part in restoring order after a rebellion in Britannia. As a reward, he’s been promised his own command in a big step for a young, ambitious tribune. It would have made his career despite his family background. But because he refuses to convert to Christianity, he’s thrown out and posted to a backwater in the mountains of Noricum. And he’s still very angry about it

Writing two such uncompromising characters who are nevertheless sensitive human beings smarting from life’s unfairness is grist to the mill for any writer. In fact, part of the fun of writing is creating a raft of characters with vastly different personalities and watching them react with each other!

a travelling carriage

How different is it from writing alternative history?

JULIA PRIMA is set in our historical timeline between AD 369 and 371 when the Roman world was riddled with religious strife and on the brink of transformation. That transformation hasn’t kicked off yet, but it’s hovering. No moment in history is fixed; it has its causes – direct and indirect – and its consequences – short term and long term. Behind the personal story of Julia and Lucius, this new book shows how the signs of decline are well and truly there and sets the scene for the start of the collapse (in the next book!)

Alternative history takes off from a point of departure (POD) triggered by an event, large or small. Writers should use the conditions prevailing at that point as the basis for developing their alternative timeline along historically logic lines. But essentially, you are writing in a void. With historical fiction, there are sources, both documentary and archaeological, sometimes sparse and often biased, but they are something available for reference and consultation, even though analysis of these sometimes causes strong arguments!

So, on the one hand, historical fiction writers have a skeleton, sometimes a whole body of research to mine for research. But opposite that, the good historical fiction writer is constrained by being obliged to search out and check with existing sources and in my opinion, not wander too far off verifiable facts. You can’t invent new Roman emperors, for example and retain credibility – we know who they all were!

Did you encounter any special difficulties in your research?

Hahaha! Yes and no. No problem with the Roman side of things, but I did check on many individual things I thought I knew. Everything had moved on in the centuries since Augustus and Hadrian, from armour and military organisation to clothes and dining arrangements. But although I researched about trekking horses in the 4^th century and knew about ‘no stirrups’, I was a little rocky on the practical aspects. So I consulted Helen! And I very much appreciated the input – thank you. Other ‘Romans’, such as Ruth Downie author of the Medicus series, helped on travel and Gordon Doherty sent me a wonderful reading list for the 4^th century.

Can JULIA PRIMA be read as a standalone?

Although it’s the first of a new strand within the Roma Nova series called ‘The Foundation Stories’, as with all the series stories it can be read as a standalone. New readers might like it as a distant prequel to the whole series while current Roma Nova enthusiasts can add it as a backstory to the modern thrillers.

Buying links for JULIA PRIMA:

Ebook (multiple retailers): https://books2read.com/JULIAPRIMA

Paperback:

https://www.alison-morton.com/books-2/julia-prima/where-to-buy-julia-prima/

Separate ebook retailers if preferred:

Kindle: https://mybook.to/JULIAPRIMA (Universal link)

Amazon UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B5LX41B7/

Kobo:

https://www.kobo.com/ebook/julia-prima

Apple:

https://books.apple.com/us/book/id6443066547

B&N Nook:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/julia-prima-alison-morton/1141719007?ean=2940186610922

About Alison

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 21^st 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 two contemporary thrillers, Double Identity and Double Pursuit. Oh, and she’s writing the next Roma Nova story.

Social media links

Connect with Alison on her Roma Nova site:

https://alison-morton.com

Facebook author page:

https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/alison_morton @alison_morton

Alison’s writing blog:

https://alisonmortonauthor.com

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/alisonmortonauthor/

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5783095.Alison_Morton

Alison’s Amazon page:

https://Author.to/AlisonMortonAmazon

Newsletter sign-up:

https://www.alison-morton.com/newsletter

Follow the Tour

PART TWO WILL FOLLOW SOON!

< PREVIOUS POST - Julia Prima Part Two >

*** ***

You might also like ... books written by Helen Hollick

Website: https://helenhollick.net/

Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick

The Jan Christopher Cosy Mysteries

set in the 1970s

buy from Amazon
https://getbook.at/MirrorMurder

http://mybook.to/AMysteryOfMurder

~~ ~ ~ ~

KING ARTHUR

A post-Roman warlord and the story
of King Arthur
The boy who became a man
The Man who became a King
The King who became a legend
Book One of the Pendragon's Banner Trilogy
The Kingmaking
(from Amazon: UK/world edition - US/Canada edition)

* * *

ANTHOLOGIES

Amazon:
https://mybook.to/1066TurnedUpsideDown

Amazon: FREE ebook!

Both feature short stories by Alison Morton

* * *

Plus many more...

fiction, non-fiction

www.helenhollick.net

Saturday 20 August 2022

#MyLetsTalkGuest JOAN FALLON - Britain’s Sea evacuees

#MyLetsTalkGuest

Welcome to my Blog!
Wander through wonderful worlds real and fictional,
meet interesting people, visit exciting places
and find a few good books to enjoy along the way!

Book Spotlight

Britain’s Sea evacuees: “The child, the best immigrant”

by Joan Fallon

Ten years ago I read an article in a magazine that took me quite by surprise. It was about thousands of children who had been routinely sent to the British colonies as child migrants. Because children were young and malleable they were seen as the best category of immigrant - easy to assimilate, more adaptable and with a long working life ahead of them. The British Dominions loved them.

This practice only came to light in 1986 when a British social worker called Margaret Humphreys met a former child migrant who asked her for assistance in locating her relatives. The woman had been sent to Australia as a young child and now she wanted to trace her family. Margaret was staggered at this revelation and since that happenstance meeting, has formed the Child Migrant Trust to help many people find their families—children now mature adults who had been sent as child migrants to countries such as Australia and Canada from Britain and never knew their own parents. She reunited many of these former child migrants with their families, although in many cases it was too late and their parents had already died.

Throughout the late 19th century thousands of children were routinely sent out to the overseas British Dominions to start new lives, and this continued during the 20th century until as late as the 1960s. They were taken from orphanages run by religious and charitable institutions and despatched to Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Some were as young as four and five; others were teenagers. Most of the children came from deprived backgrounds and it was considered to be for their own good that they were plucked from poverty and sent to a country where there was good food and new opportunities for them. The receiving countries welcomed them—they needed people, and children were so much easier to mould into their way of life than adults.

So when World War II broke out in 1939 there was already a precedent for sending children abroad to start new lives. June 1940 saw the start of heavy bombing raids across London, and with the threat of an enemy invasion becoming more and more real, it was then that the British government decided to set up the Children’s Overseas Reception Board to send the children of parents who could not afford to send them to safety, to the Dominions. They enlisted help from charities with experience of child migration, such as the Barnado’s Homes, Fairbridge Farm Schools, the Salvation Army and the Catholic Church. However the plan was not warmly received by everyone—Winston Churchill thought it was a defeatist move and others warned of the disruption it would cause to families. Nevertheless within two weeks CORB had received over 200,000 applications from parents who wanted to send their children to safety. Parents often volunteered the names of relatives or friends who would look after the children in their new country and homes were found for the others by CORB representatives or the charities.

In the first few months CORB despatched over three thousand children to the Dominions. Then tragedy struck. All shipping traffic was subject to attacks from German U-boats and on 17th September 1940, the City of Benares, sailing from Liverpool for Canada with 197 passengers on board, was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic. Ninety of the passengers were children. It was a dreadful night with gale-force winds and driving rain. 131 of the crew and 134 passengers were killed, among them seventy CORB children. The reaction in Britain was one of horror and recrimination. It had already been suggested that it was too risky to send children overseas during the war and now the sceptics had been proven correct. It was decided that no more children were to be sent to the Dominions unless their ship was in a protective convoy. As there were not enough ships to use in the convoys that meant the end of the Sea Evacuee scheme. The children had to take their chance in Britain. Unlike other child migrants, most of the sea evacuees returned to Britain once the war was over. But child migration continued until 1967 when the last nine children were sent to Australia by the Barnado’s Homes charity.

In my novel ‘The Only Blue Door,' three children are sent to Australia under the CORB scheme in one of the last ships to take sea evacuees to the Dominions. Unlike the other CORB children they are sent from an orphanage which had taken them in, erroneously believing them to be orphans. Although the characters are fictitious many of the details in the novel are based on the testimony of ex-child migrants.

If you want to read more about this topic I can recommend “New Lives for Old” by Roger Kershaw and Janet Sacks, “Innocents Abroad” by Edward Stokes and Margaret Humphreys’ book “Empty Cradles”.

A review

The Only Blue Door

was reviewed by Discovering Diamonds

BUY

Amazon UK

Amazon.com

Author Direct (Audio version)

A history graduate, turned teacher and now self-published author, Joan's writing encompasses both historical fiction, contemporary women’s fiction, non-fiction and more recently crime fiction. Born in Dumfries, Scotland, she has been living in Spain for the last twenty-three years. Many of her novels are set there, particularly the historical ones which focus on two distinct periods in the country’s history, the Spanish Civil War and Moorish Spain. To date she has written and published seventeen books, including the Al-Andalus trilogy, The City of Dreams trilogy, Spanish Lavender and The Only Blue Door. She is a member of the Society of Authors and the Alliance of Independent Authors.

Reviewed by
Discovering Diamonds

Link to Joan

www.facebook.com/joanfallonbooks

www.joanfallon.co.uk

www.joanfallon.co.uk/blog.html

https://twitter.com/joan_fallon

< PREVIOUS POST

*** ***

You might also like ... books written by Helen Hollick

Website: https://helenhollick.net/

Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick

The Jan Christopher Cosy Mysteries

set in the 1970s

buy from Amazon
https://getbook.at/MirrorMurder

http://mybook.to/AMysteryOfMurder

~~ ~ ~ ~

The SEA WITCH VOYAGES

nautical adventures set during the Golden Age of Piracy

If you liked Pirates Of The Caribbean?
then you'll love the Sea Witch Voyages!
Amazon: https://viewbook.at/SeaWitch

* * *

ANTHOLOGIES

Amazon:
https://mybook.to/1066TurnedUpsideDown

Amazon: FREE ebook!

Plus many more...

fiction, non-fiction

www.helenhollick.net

Saturday 6 August 2022

#MyLetsTalk weekend Guest ... Dodie Hamilton

#MyLetsTalkGuest

Welcome to my Blog!
Wander through wonderful worlds real and fictional,
meet interesting people, visit exciting places
and find a few good books to enjoy along the way!

The Gabriel Quartet by Dodie Hamilton

About the Books

Being an Angel is not easy, nor at any time might it be seen as fair: it is a sacred duty entrusted by the Almighty, a chance to Serve, and then only after the accepting of a millennium of lives. The Gabriel Quartet is the story of an Alabama man: Gabriel Templar, who was born part mortal and wholly divine, and who, while he could neither read nor write, was able with a wave of his hand to change the seasons or to give life or take it away.

A reluctant angel, Gabriel saw his divinity as an unwanted gift. At nights he would lie sleepless in his attic, howling at the moon; 'Leave me be, why don't you! I never asked for this. All I ever wanted was to be left alone to live my life as an ordinary guy.'

Gabriel Templar is not being so very truthful: he might want to be seen as an ordinary man he surely does not want to be alone; On the contrary, he yearns to share life with the girl he loves: the one who comes to him in dreams, or at night at a shaft of starlight: his ‘little gal’ - his Other Self, as he sees her.

Gabriel was born loving this girl as he was born to love her in the last life and the one before that; Life after life, he will go on being alone until the day she is able to say, 'Yes, and I will love you.'

Enjoy An Excerpt

Reluctant Angels

By Dodie Hamilton

Prologue

Bug’s Wings

"A WW2 pilot, a soldier and US Marine, three strong and powerful men, each loved the beautiful Adelia Challoner and promised, no matter what happened, war or no war, they would be with her until the end of time. One man, with marks on his back that in a certain light look like bug wings, kept his promise: Gabriel Templar, an ex-con, a murderer and having the curse of “Becoming Angel” will be there until the end of time, again…and again…and again…"

This is how it started. One day in early Spring Pa took the belt from behind the door to administer discipline. When he was done, arm wrung out and sweat in his eyes, he gave Gabe a choice: he could work with them that was already killed or he could do the killing. There weren’t no choice. Gabe could never work in a slaughterhouse: cattle so scared, great big eyes pleading for mercy, it would’ve killed him. So he did the other thing; he went to work for old Man Smith, Simeon Salmanovitz, at the Valley Funeral Parlour.

Mr Smith took him back of the shop. ‘This is the preparation room where I do most of my work.’ Gabe peered round the door. A couple of metal tubs and a pulley contraption screwed to the rafters, he daren’t think what kind of preparing went on in there.

That first day he hovered. ‘Come on in,' says Simeon. ‘No need to be afeard, nothing happening here but folks getting ready for their last journey.’

Coffins propped along the wall, shadows everywhere and a strong smell of lye, eight year-old Gabe thought it was an awful place. That smell! There were times in later life when he’d ketch a drift of that and straight way was back in Virginia watching Simeon embalming a corpse. Skinny old guy, dry as leather, he’d be standing over a drain, an apron about his waist and his feet encased in outsize rubber boots. ‘Come close, young Gabe Templar,’ he’d be saying, ‘and I’ll show you how it’s done.’

Gabe didn’t want to know how it was done: Pa said he was to be making coffins; he said nothing about washing dead bodies.

He’d hovered at the door. ‘I can’t stay, Mr Smith,’ he says, ‘truly I can’t.’

Simeon nodded. ‘I’ll allow it don’t seem fair, the sun shining and me and you and Miss Virginia Ransome here in the gloom. I can see why you’d sooner be some place else as I can see how given the choice Miss Virginia would feel the same. Poor lady dying of dropsy she has no say in the matter, her only hope a Christian burial and to look decent when knocking on the Pearly Gates.’

But for a fly buzzing it was quiet. Still Gabe hovered. Then Simeon had sighed. ‘But never mind Miss Virginia’s hopes. Cut along home and tell your Pa you weren’t able to stay. I guess he’ll understand.’

There it was again a choice that was no choice. Gabe stayed. He would like to think it was care of Miss Virginia that kept him but there were other considerations: the bank foreclosed on the Mill and Pa out of work and them having to leave Alabama.

Of course, there was the two dollars promised at the end of the week, and also the need not to be a yellow-belly when alone with a dead body. All of those unhappy considerations kept him at the Parlour that day but mostly it was about not having to see Ma’s face when returning home empty-handed caused Pa to seek out the belt.

Gabe stayed that day and on til his seventeenth birthday. As for the belt, the two dollars earned working from school until late into the night made no difference - discipline was maintained, bloodied wheals crisscrossing his back that by morning would be gone. Yes, they were there at night but come five of the morning he would wake without a blemish. It’s why nobody knew overmuch of Pa’s fondness for discipline, and nobody yelling out, ‘stop that Hodge Templar! You’re hurting that boy.’

Ma said the cuts on Gabe’s back looked like bug’s wings. The overnight healing she put down to good blood her side of the family, ‘Sister Belle always quick to heal.’ Gabe saw it different. He saw a miracle, a painful miracle while it was happening yet a miracle nonetheless.

After a beating he’d lie on his belly trying not to weep. Knowing the miracle-maker was close by he’d stare into the darkness. ‘It’s okay, little gal,’ he’d whisper. ‘Don’t you fret! I know who makes me well and it ain’t Aunt Belle.’

On such a night, his back a fiery furnace and his pillow wet, he would twist and turn, every muscle aching and yet his heart filled with love. Most nights he’d try staying awake hoping to catch sight of her but dog-tired would sleep to rise in the morning healed. ‘Cept for dreams he rarely saw his little gal but now and then, when real unhappy, kids at school calling him a dummy, and Pa extra busy with the belt, she would visit, shining and perfect, his Other Self, a reminder that she was more than a dream.

So it went year-after-year until there was another world war and the dream was made flesh.

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon CA

Amazon AU

OTHER BOOKS

reviewed by Discovering Diamonds

A SECOND CHANCE

Family drama / mystery WWII US

'When Adelia, beautiful GI Bride, crosses an Ocean to be with a USAF pilot she takes with her a dark secret. Locked in her head is the identity of the father of her daughter, a US Major. When she reaches America, her fiancé, Bobby, isn’t there to meet her. He sent another man, the local undertaker, Gabriel Templar, in his place. Home in Virginia is not as promised. It’s a dirty place. It has a gated tower where a man hides from the light. It is crammed with secrets of its own. Adelia cannot remember her first love. Like the man in the tower, the memory of his face, how he used to look, is locked away. Amnesia holds the key to many doors. Adelia and her little daughter, Sophie, live in constant danger. Until one door is unlocked, and Lazarus returns from the dead, a lonely man with the name of an Archangel is all that stands between Adelia and fear.'

A Second Chance is a good story: A British war bride coming to live with an American soldier in 1942, despite hardly knowing him. She has her own secrets, an illegitimate child and on her arrival she finds a few surprises and mysteries, an absent husband and a hostile mother-in-law. The plot and the intrigue around the mystery kept me going throughout.

I felt that the overall presentation of the era and the characters was authentic and gives a great impression of war-time Virginia.

This is an enjoyable and compelling read that got me invested in the characters and, although being only one isolated such story, it gave me some fascinating insights into the psychology and reality of war brides.

FRAGILE BLOSSOM

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon CA

Amazon AU

Romance Edwardian England

Fragile Blossoms by Dodie Hamilton is a romantic historical fiction novel set in the Edwardian period. This book is a delight to read - I can honestly say after years of reviews that seldom do you come across a writer with such a voice and such a heroine who can lift you up and put you into another world so deftly. Beautifully written...

Julianna Dryden is a celebrated beauty and muse for the great and the good - and is the protégée of the dubious wealthy Lady Evelyn who has a disreputable brother - oh yes, it is Georgette Heyer all the way but with such a modern twist - until she inherits a house. But a little house with such a legend - once a teashop to two mysterious and difficult sisters. Julianna and her little son Matty seek an escape and here it is. Our heroine is a widow and so must rely on her patroness which is increasingly a burden due to her attentions.... So off to Norfolk and Sandringham (and yes, the king makes an appearance) where Julianna befriends the publican and a dark, handsome builder who helps with the teashop unwillingly.

Julianna wants the shop to be a success; and so it looks until scandal looms through no fault of her own - and then Julianna finds friends fall away and her son in danger.

This is the sort of book that cheers you. Our heroine is so engaging but not a pushover and you root for her all the way as the scattering of great names test her. Yes, some of the plot is implausible, some of it over romantic, but that does not detract from writing that lifts you up.

Why the author hasn't found a publisher I don't know - except that this novel could be edited by a good quarter and in the middle it did weigh as I turned pages to get on and needed to pick up - and way, way too many points of view dropped in - with a better editor this would be such a good book. So give it a go.

About the author

Dodie Hamilton, or the Spiritual Midwife as she is known, is recognized throughout the world for her work in psychic counselling: her particular interest being the Near Death and Out-of-Body experience.

Over fifty years she has given countless private consultations and appeared at many of the Mind, Body & Spirit Festivals. All of her books and writings - no matter how real, and how flesh and blood, as in say, A Second Chance, the first in the Gabriel Books - are borne of years of personal exploration of the Spirit Realms, her mentor in this work being the late Robert A Monroe, of the Monroe Institute, Virginia, author of Journeys Out of Body, Far Journeys, and The Ultimate Journey, and to whom she is ever grateful.

Three of her novels have won Reader's Awards:

A Second Chance and Fragile Blossoms won The Chill Reader's Award

Perfidia, the sequel to A Second Chance won a Chill Award and A Diamond Award. Reluctant Angels, the prequel to A Second Chance, received The Readers Chill Award.

Air and Angels is Dodie's latest novel

TWITTER @dodie_hamilton https://twitter.com/dodie_hamilton

FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/dodie.hamilton.7