Research | Alison Morton Author

Call Jean Fullerton!

Born into a large East End family, Jean was brought up in the overcrowded streets clustered around the Tower of London. Her Victorian stories shining with authenticity have delighted both readers and critics. Jean’s fifth book, Call Nurse Millie, set in 1940s London, draws on her own experience as a district nurse in East London. […]

The Domain of Soissons - a Roman remnant

The Roman Empire didn’t ‘fall’ in a cataclysmic event as the movies and TV would have you believe – it localised and eventually dissolved like chain mail fragmenting into separate links, giving way to rump states, local city states and petty kingdoms. New, dynamic and often warring nations emerged – Goths, Franks, Alamans and Burgundians.

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Researching – a transferable skill

Working out how to get from Poitiers in France to my son’s graduation in Nottingham, I found myself treading a familiar research path. I’d always been able to dig info and knowledge out of the corners they were lurking in, but these abilities were honed into concrete skills when I was studying for my MA […]

Must-have writer's aids...

Yes, essential to the writing environment are:

a working computer with appropriate software a supportive chair warmth light peace

But the most important adjunct is CHOCOLATE. So what does chocolate do for the writer?

1. Flavonoids Chocolate is chock-full(!) of flavonoids—naturally-occurring compounds found in the cacao plant, as well as in red wine, tea, fruits, […]

Sorting out your Romans from your Visigoths, Carolingians et al.

Doing a bit of research into the post-Roman world, I came across Chris Wickham’s The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000. It’s brilliant!

From the first page, I was enthralled. Now, I’m a self-confessed Roman nut and intrigued by that mysterious time in Europe after the mid-400s AD until the […]