Meet Kathryn Gauci - The Embroiderer

Kathryn Gauci was born in England. After studying textile design at Loughborough College of Art, she worked in Athens as a carpet designer for six years and after much travelling settled down to run her own textile design studio in Melbourne for fifteen years. She now lives in Australia with her husband. The Embroiderer is […]

What the readers say... The survey report

Readers never cease to surprise me – that’s the chief finding of the survey I ran over three weeks at the end of January/ beginning of February. I wanted to know how readers found the books they read and how they interacted with authors. It was pure curiosity combined with a sincere wish to give […]

Meet Elaine Moxon and the Wolf Sons - Wulfsuna

A Birmingham author and member of the Historical Novel Society, Elaine grew up in an Anglo-Italian family. She attributes her lifelong interest in story-telling to the roguish tales her grandfather told of his Italian childhood, and family holidays visiting ancient burial sites and stone circles. She loves languages, history and travel and lives with her […]

Roman cops

Thinking about police, gendarmes and emergency services in the past few days brought me to the law enforcers of Ancient Rome. Faced with terrorist attack (or riot, revolt and rebellion), they would have been robust in their attitude and actions. So who policed Rome?

Portable Roman fire engine nozzle, Madrid Museum (Creative Commons)

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Roman counts

Carina, the heroine of the first three Roma Nova books, has an honorary title of ‘Countess Carina’ as her grandmother’s heir. As the head of the family/tribe, Aurelia is called ‘Countess Mitela’. Now why do the descendants of Romans have these titles? And how does the relationship work between the imperatrix, the ruler of Roma […]