Blog | Alison Morton Author

The Next Big Thing...

Last Wednesday I was tagged by the marvellous writer Victoria Lamb for The Next Big Thing. This week, it’s my turn to answer the following questions and tag a few other writers in my turn.

What is the title of your next book?
INCEPTIO

Where did the idea for the book come from?
INCEPTIO is the first of the Roma Nova series set in the present day but in an alternate world, where women rule a European country founded by Romans sixteen centuries before. My heroine, living alone in New York, doesn’t have a clue about how strong her connection is to the mysterious Roma Nova until she meets a spy in disguise and a government enforcer who kidnaps and tries to kill her. And then it gets personal…

My memory of me as a eleven year old, walking amongst the mosaic floors in Ampurias (Spain), listening to my father explaining about Romans still lives in my mind. I asked him, ‘What would it have been like if women were in charge?’ He stopped and looked at me. ‘Well, what do you think it would have been like?’ And the thought germinated and grew. Very, very slowly.

What genre does your book fall under?
Alternate history thriller

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
A while ago, Meg Ryan and Val Kilmer, with Judi Dench and Alexander Siddig. Today, probably Bryce Dallas Howard and Orlando Bloom, with Meryl Streep and Ben Barnes.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
It will be published though SilverWood Books, based in Bristol, a publishing services company. It will be out in early March 2013.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Ninety days, and it was rubbish! I self-edited with the help of my critique partner and did about four runs through. I like to bash the plot out, then refine and layer the story and finally go through it line by line to make each word and sentence earn their keep. Then I seek professional help, as they say…

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I don’t know any other books like the ones I write! Not exactly like them, anyway. First of all, they’re spy thrillers with plenty of action, conspiracy and betrayal. And this first one, INCEPTIO, has a cracking, complex villain. Next, my heroine (mostly) overcomes culture change and evolves into an identity which she realises is a natural fit for her, a world away from her previous unsatisfactory existence. And of course there’s romance and heartbreak. But running through are tough Roman values and the “fight or die” imperative feeding into the “what if?” alternate history.
So, to answer the question, a mix of Lindsey Davis’ Falco series, J.D Robb’s Eve Dallas Death series and Robert Harris’ Fatherland.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
An itch to get the story out there! Bubbling away since I was eleven, the story burst out from the gooey mess beneath during the visit to the cinema when my husband and I were watching a dire film.
‘I could do better that that,’ I whispered in the darkened cinema.
‘So why don’t you?’ came his reply.
Three months later, I had completed the first draft.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
We seem to have an endless fascination for things Roman, but I didn’t want to write a swords and sandals epic – there’s far too much competition. Nor did I want to impose 21st century values, ideas or roles on to women in Republican, Principate or Dominate Roman societies. There were some remarkable women’s actions and voices recorded, but they are very, very few. So projecting forward to the 21st century where I could have a feminist switch was too tempting to resist. I think that piques!

INCEPTIO will be out on 1 March 2013.

I’d like to tag, in my turn, these writers:

Matt Mitrovich who as well as editing the wonderful Alternate History Weekly Update site, writes and blogs at Matt Mitrovich, Author

Paula Lofting, author of Sons of the Wolf and blogger at Paula Lofting, Historical Fiction Writer

Dominion

A tough and powerful word, but an appropriate title for C J Sansom’s new book. Famous for his Shardlake Tudor series, here Sansom brings us to 1952 in an alternate, authoritarian Britain which made peace with Hitler in 1940. Not formally occupied, Britain is nevertheless dominated by the Nazi regime. Its home-grown “milice” – a vastly expanded and violent Special Branch working hand-in-hand with the Gestapo dispensing brutality from the basement of the German Embassy at Senate House – patrols the dismal and dirty streets.

Germany is still fighting a bitter, savage war against Russia, the British press, radio and television are filled with propaganda and British Jews face ever greater constraints.

The hero, David Fitzgerald, is a civil servant hiding his Jewishness and trying to preserve his marriage which is collapsing under the pressure of his secret life as a spy for the Resistance. The antagonist, Gunther Hoth, a Gestapo policeman hunting Fitzgerald and his Resistance colleagues, is neither stupid nor inexperienced and almost becomes a sympathetic character. This is no “Dick Barton” adventure with clear-cut lines.

Dense with detail that makes its portrayal of everyday life so vivid, the action starts slowly, but by the end, the tension is almost unbearable. Real events like Great Smog of 1952 are woven it to ramp up the threatening atmosphere and clever details about the alternate1950s are grafted on to real ones, such as British Corner Houses replacing Lyons Corner Houses (Joe Lyons was, of course, Jewish).

The characters are beautifully, often painfully, drawn and fleshed out with past histories full of awkward relations, tiresome colleagues, happy and painful childhoods. Complex, sometimes very frightened, the characters are always human. Their dialogue mirrors this as well as driving the story forward.

Although interacting with the characters’ story, the overarching political plot does not reply upon their actions. The seeming important secret is of negative importance. In one way, this is unsatisfactory, in another it emphasises how the actions of ordinary people do not impact or contribute to the bigger one. In this book, that would have been too pat.

Part adventure, part espionage, all encompassed by terrific atmosphere, this is an exciting, but moving account of people who become heroic but remain very human.

A little drop of magic and spellbinding

A Roman magic stone

My fellow writer, Janice Horton, is throwing a “Spellbindingly Fun Blog Party” today and as a little light relief, I’m joining in.

Magic was an integral part of Roman life – astrology, amulets, incantations, spells, healing and cursing formulas. Pliny’s conclusion, however, was cautious: though he dismissed magic as ineffective and infamous, it nevertheless contained “shadows of truth”, particularly of the “arts of making poisons”. Yet, Pliny states, “there is no one who is not afraid of spells” (including himself presumably!). He neither commended or condemned the amulets and charms that people wore as preventive medicine but instead suggested that it was better to err on the side of caution, just in case a new kind of magic, a magic that really worked, might be developed at any time.

The emperor Constantine I in the 4th century AD issued a ruling about all charges of magic. He distinguished between helpful charms, not punishable, and “antagonistic” spells. Roman authorities specifically decided what forms of magic were acceptable and which were not. Those that were not acceptable were termed “magic”; those that were acceptable were usually defined as traditions of the state or practices of the state’s religions. Talk about rationalisation!

So, on to Janice’s Spellbinding party. All participants have to prepare a spell (hopefully not counting as “antagonistic”) and may mention their object of desire at the end. At the end of the spell, you may not be totally surprise by my object of desire, given my previous post.

The spell:
Feather of a golden eagle, brush the dragon’s tears and stardust into one. Crush three wild rose petals into the mix and add five drops of snake venom. Chant the incantation, dip your finger into the potion, touch your head and heart with your fingertip then pour the mixture over the parchment paper on which your desire is written.

My object of desire:

INCEPTIO
Kindle Edition
Average Review: ***** (52 reviews)
Current Sales Rank: #1 in Kindle Store

INCEPTIO
Paperback Edition
Average Review: ***** (38 reviews)
Current Sales Rank: #1 in Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
#1 in Alternate History

Huge news!

I have signed a publishing agreement with SilverWood Books. INCEPTIO will appear in paperback and ebook format. We are looking at Spring 2013. If it changes, I’ll let you know!

So what is my book about? Romans, alternate history, romance, action-adventure, loss, self-growth, recognition? All of those.

Suppose you’re an ordinary young woman in New York, nearly twenty-five years old. You work in an office Monday to Friday. It’s pretty routine. You don’t have a college degree so other people overtake you, but you don’t mind too much. Well, sometimes, but generally not.

Why? Because you have the best weekend volunteer job in the world, in the city park – a huge green paradise over 800 acres. Breathing fresh air, helping people, laughing with kids, losing yourself in the trees. It reminds you of your happy childhood home, the one you lost when your father died when you were twelve.

It’s what you live for, it’s what keeps you sane.

That’s your life – five days so-so, two days exhilaration. Life is safe, if a tad boring and going nowhere.

Then you throw a stoned kid and his two friends out of the park for beating up an old man. Problem is his father’s the second most powerful person in the country. Result – you get sacked from your beloved volunteer job. You are devastated.

But you get a promotion at work and meet an attractive foreign spy disguised as an interpreter. He’s from a mysterious European country founded centuries ago by Romans.

Soon a sinister enforcer from your own government is trying to wipe you out. And the pretty hot foreign spy is trying to convince you he’s the good guy.

But this world isn’t the one this blog is written in – it has a different history and different rules…

Photo contest – WINNER!

I decided to have a new author photo to use across all platforms. Sometimes, I may use it in black and white, other times colour. Like a true Libran, I was dithering. So I ran a poll to ask readers which did they think was best.

STOP PRESS 26 OCTOBER 2012: The winner is Photo2! (70%). Second was Photo1 with 20% and Photo3 was a valiant third with 10%

Many thanks to all those who took part.