Finding Roma Nova with Alison Morton

The setting for Roma Nova

by Alison Morton

Imagining Roma Nova – Or is it real?

Ever since I read Violet Needham’s Stormy Petrel series as a child I’ve been caught by the idea of imaginary countries in Central Europe. Needham’s books for children invoke a romantic ‘otherwhere’, making it familiar, with a subtle, understated magical tone. Possibly seeming old-fashioned now, she’s very much the unsung, and sadly unknown, mother of modern fantasy with a mix of heroism, sacrifice and honour. At first her books were deemed by (grown-up) publishers to be too complex for children, but the story goes that one of the children of a family director at William Collins publishers loved the story, so it was accepted for publication. Talk about serendipity!

A little older, I was entranced by The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau – classic examples of ‘Central Europe’. I thirsted after everything I could find about this amorphous region with no defined boundaries but a definite idea of itself. The Austro-Hungarian Empire seemed to be a concrete representation, but it wasn’t quite. When I learnt German, I found many ideas and writings about Mitteleuropa as a concept. As an adult, I found The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth to be a sweeping history of heroism and duty, desire and compromise, tragedy and heartbreak, a story over generations that lasts until the eve of the First World War. But that empire was vast, diverse and autocratic. Like the Ancient Roman Empire, it collapsed under its own weight and the pressure of people’s desire for their own homeland and self-governance, whether by conquest or democracy.

With all that in mind, my even greater obsession with all 1,229 years of Ancient Rome and a reasonably good knowledge of the alpine regions, I dreamt about an ideal place for the setting for my Romans seeking a new home. But it would be a small colonia, not an empire! It had to be fertile enough to sustain people, defendable and off the beaten track. So I started researching…

Imagine my delight when I found in real history that at the dusk of the Western Roman Empire people had actually established safe places in the mountains called Fliehburgen. A number of these successfully protected their population during the barbarian invasions, sometimes developing into permanent settlements for decades in the most dangerous periods. And for the Roma Novans, this became necessary in the years after the story in EXSILIUM.

Over their history, the Roma Novans, cultivated their land, built their cities, suffered invasion, rebuilt their cities, extended their holdings, negotiated treaties and managed to survive into the 21^st century when the first modern Roma Nova adventure takes place in INCEPTIO.

What does Roma Nova look like in the 21^st century?
It’s an alpine country with lower lying valleys a few small towns (Castra Lucilla to the south of the main city, Brancadorum at the east, Aquae Caesaris to the west) and a river city full of columns, a forum, Senate house and temples. High mountains and hills to three sides, although very useful for defence in past ages, keep the 21st century pilots from Air Roma Nova (and most international airlines) on their toes when landing their passenger aircraft after a long haul flight!

Sadly, you can’t use Google Maps to view Roma Nova’s geography from space nor load a Wikipedia page for its history. But inventing a country doesn’t mean you can throw any old facts into your book. They have to hang together. Geography is very important as you need to know what crops they can grow – spelt, oats, olives in sheltered areas, vines, vegetables and fruit – and what animals they raise – cows, sheep, horses, pigs, poultry, etc.

To look back to when those first Roman dissidents left Italy in AD 395 and trekked north to found Roma Nova, I also needed to deepen my specific knowledge about Roman life and culture at that time: their mindset, their customs, their concerns, their ways of doing things. As a reference, the first chapters of Christopher Wickham’s book The Inheritance of Rome draws a clear and detailed picture.

With the Roma Nova books, I’ve used terms that people might already know like the Roman sword, gladius, greeting such as salve, solidi as money, ranks like legate and centurion. But I’ve made the gladius carbon steel, the solidi have currency notes, debit cards and apps as well as coins, and I’ve mixed in other European military ranks such as captain in with traditional Roman ranks. It gives a sense of history that’s gone forward and adapted to the modern age.

Ancient Romans were fabulous engineers and technologists, organised and determined to apply practical solutions to the needs of their complex and demanding civilisation, so I’ve positioned them in the 21st century at the forefront of the communications and digital revolutions.

The silver mines in Roma Nova’s mountains and the resulting processing industry that underpinned Roma Nova’s early economy, and still play an extremely important role in 21st century Roma Nova, are another allusion to ancient Rome. Silver was a big reason the Romans wanted Britannia. Dacia (Romania) and Noricum (Austria) in central Europe were also of special significance to ancient Rome, as they were very rich in high quality deposits of silver, as well as iron ore, some gold and rare earths. Giving Roma Nova extensive silver deposits provides a strong, plausible reason for its economic survival through the ages.

I also wanted my imaginary country to be near Italy and Austria for international connections. So it had to be in south central Europe. In the end, I pinched Carinthia in southern Austria, and northern Slovenia as my models. And in summer 2023, I went to the old Noricum capital of Virunum, near Klagenfurt in Austria and was thrilled to visit breathe in the air of ‘Roma Nova’.

Alison Morton © March, 2024

Alison’s social media links:

Connect with Alison on her thriller site: https://alison-morton.com

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor

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Alison’s writing blog: https://alisonmortonauthor.com

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Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5783095.Alison_Morton
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Alison’s Amazon page: https://Author.to/AlisonMortonAmazon

Newsletter sign-up: https://www.alison-morton.com/newsletter/

Review of ‘Exsilium’ by Alison Morton

Exile – the only way to surive

There is an excellent new addition to Alison Morton’s fascinating series Roma Nova, which tells the story of three very different people forced into exile by events in 4th Century Rome.

As I was reading, I became aware through small details that Alison Morton probably knows everything there is to know about 4^th Century A.D. Rome and Romans. This knowledge deepens the story a great deal because what happens to the three main protagonists is a result of contemporary circumstances. Circumstances that resonate in our 21st Century. It is surprising, and not a little disquieting, how much our lives have not changed. Religious intolerance, gender issues, family ties and tensions, they are all here, plus the sad need to find a new place to live, and the difficulties and dangers involved in getting there.

I became invested in the main characters and found myself thinking about them between readings: Lucius Apulius, an ex-tribune, Galla Apulia, his eldest daughter, and Maelia Mitela, widow of a man labelled as a pagan traitor for holding on to belief in the ancient gods; each struggle with personal traumas along with the difficulties of a society at a critical point of change. Morton develops her characters in such a way that one can see why they make certain choices, and how they change during the course of the story.

Details of everyday life such as food and clothing, household management and social expectations enrich the story. Action scenes, where the outcome is never obvious, also kept me turning pages. Quality reading for Roman history buffs and hist-fic fans alike. © J.G. Harlond

Buying links: Amazon: https://mybook.to/EXSILIUM

Other retailers: https://books2read.com/EXSILIUM

About the author:

Alison Morton writes award-winning thrillers featuring tough but compassionate heroines. Her ten-book Roma Nova series is set in an imaginary European country where a remnant of the Roman Empire has survived into the 21^st century and is ruled by women who face conspiracy, revolution and heartache but use a sharp line in dialogue. The latest, EXSILIUM, plunges us back to the late 4^th century, to the very foundation of Roma Nova.

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.

Social media links

Connect with Alison on her thriller site: https://alison-morton.com

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor

X/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
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@alisonmortonauthor

Alison’s Amazon page: https://Author.to/AlisonMortonAmazon

Newsletter sign-up: https://www.alison-morton.com/newsletter/

Inspired by Location

Beyond the Fields We Know

‘Whatever I write, I start with the setting . . . ‘

How and why a writer can be inspired by a landscape or location by Marian L Thorpe, author of the Empire’s Legacy Trilogy.

One of my favourite walks is along part of a long-distance path that follows the route of a Roman road that probably follows an even older track. At its North Sea end, wooden henges stood. On either side of the section I walk most frequently, Bronze Age barrows rise from the fields. The ruins of Roman villas lie under the soil not far from it; the moot hill of the Saxon hundred it crosses is believed to be by its side. In The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Lord Dunsany described fairyland as lying ‘beyond the fields we know.’ I don’t write about fairyland, but I do write about a world that lies lightly on a palimpsest of our real, historic world.

Whatever I write, I start with the setting. Stories emerge from landscapes for me, and even when they are complete fiction their settings are strongly based on a real place. Whether it’s verse—the first work I had accepted for publication as an adult—or my short stories, or my novels, they are all rooted in and inseparable from the physical world in which they are set.

I had a rural childhood of the sort almost unimaginable today. I grew up over 50 years ago, roaming fields and woods and lanes on foot or on my bike, often alone. I watched the progression of wildflowers over the summer; I watched planting and harvest.

I learned to identify trees and birds and wildlife, and understand to some extent the landscape in which I lived and the forces, human and natural, that had shaped it. The theme of the first novel I ever began, at seventeen, is the relationship between a man and the land, the deep, hard-fought and hard-won connection between the two—and that’s still a theme in my Empire’s Legacy series.

The books I loved to read as a child were books that were firmly placed in their landscapes. Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series; The Wind in the Willows. Puck of Pook’s Hill. Rosemary Sutcliffe, and many, many more. Books where landscape is a character, in a way. I also grew up in a family where history was important. It was discussed, my interest encouraged. My father’s love was Tudor/Plantagenet history; mine evolved into late classical/early medieval.

In my twenties and thirties my husband and I travelled as extensively as we could, not to cities but to the footpaths and trails of almost every country and county of the UK and throughout North America. I soaked up landscape, I soaked up history, and I fell deeply in love with the concept of landscape history. (Thanks, Time Team!) So when I began to write Empire’s Daughter, the first book in the Empire’s Legacy series, I started with a landscape: the coast of Anglesey. I saw it, and then I began to populate it with characters and a society.

The series isn’t set in the real world, but neither is it truly a fantasy world. There are no variations from the laws of physics or nature, only (barely) a fantasy geography. There are no fae or otherworldly creatures, only the flora and fauna of northern and central Europe.

Every place in the entire series has a real-life inspiration, and I’ve been to most of them. (If I haven’t, I’ve substituted a place I have been, in a similar ecological/geographic niche.)

The reasons for this are many, and varied. As someone who was, for a chunk of her life, a biological scientist, and has been for all her life an amateur field naturalist, I am annoyed beyond words with unreal worlds whose ecologies don’t work. So that’s one reason, but not the major one. The books are set in an analogue world, but it’s one that for many people will be both recognizable and familiar—and that was done on purpose. Because my books explore questions of societal and socio-sexual structures and expectations, because they are more concerned with questions of philosophy and morality and politics than battles, I didn’t want to add another layer of worldbuilding to the mix. It would have been a distraction, another thing for the reader to have to think about and absorb.

In the first two books my main character Lena never leaves the known world, one based entirely on the UK both geographically and historically. There’s a Wall, there’s a country north of the Wall, and these two countries are long-term enemies. The country north of the Wall has a province that sometimes belongs to them, and sometimes to the seafaring people from even further north. Even the battles are based on real ones: Stanford Bridge, the Battle of Maldon. For me, and for anyone who learned British history in any detail, this all should feel familiar – and that’s what I wanted: to place, in a familiar setting, a story that challenges a number of societal structures.

The third reason for the settings of my books is simple: I draw heavily on my own experiences in the descriptions of my characters’ interactions with their environments. I’ve been pelted by hailstones on a mountainside. I’ve slipped on scree; I’ve walked on dusty, arid plains, climbed up waterfalls (not quite as terrifying as the one Lena does), camped in the cold and wet and lived (albeit briefly) in primitive wooden huts. It’s easier to write about real experiences than it is to make them up.

Mix the idea of a world that lies beyond the fields we know, add the discovered and undiscovered history that lies beneath the fields we know, throw in a strong seasoning of love for landscape and nature, a dash of the belief that we are shaped by the places we love, and bake that all in the mind of a writer—and you have the genesis of the world I created in Empire’s Legacy. © Marian L Thorpe 2023

Find out more about Marian L Thorpe’s books on: marianlthorpe.com

Many generations past, the great empire from the east left Lena’s country to its own defences. Now invasion threatens…and to save their land, women must learn the skills of war.

But in a world reminiscent of Britain after the fall of Rome, only men fight; women farm and fish. Lena’s choice to answer her leader’s call to arms separates her from her lover Maya, beginning her journey of exploration: a journey of body, mind and heart.

Read my review of Empire’s Daughter on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54687565-empire-s-daughter

Find Marian’s books on: https://books2read.com/marianlthorpe

Location, Location, Location – a library

A guest post by author Helen Hollick on using familiar and unfamiar settings in fiction

Setting in A Mistake of Murder

The third Jan Christopher Cosy Mystery by Helen Hollick

They say ‘write what you know about’, which is all well and good, but as a writer of historical fiction and nautical adventure, I don’t know any Romano-British people, anyone who actually fought at the Battle of Hastings, nor any early eighteenth-century pirates.

Chingford Library, North London

I did, however, work in a North London suburb public library during the 1970s, so I chose this era and location as a background setting for my venture into the Cosy Mystery Genre.

A familiar location – the ‘where’ – is, in fact, probably more practical for a writer in the ‘what you know about’ stakes. Buildings, roads and such can change through the centuries, after a long while perhaps rivers too, but the general ‘lie of the land’ stays pretty much the same.

When writing my Arthurian Trilogy (back in the 1980s!) I went up to the top of Glastonbury Tor to study the view. The tower atop the Tor would not have been there in the fifth/sixth centuries, nor the roads or houses spread all around below, but the shape of the Tor itself – and the trudge up it – would not have altered that much. Nor would the apparent flatness of the Somerset levels or the distant surrounding hills. I could smell the grass, hear and feel the wind as it brushed my left cheek… all that was enough to give me the atmosphere I needed to bring those particular scenes alive.

The same with the sea. OK so I’ve never sailed on a pirate ship. In truth, I’ve never been aboard a moving tall ship. The largest sailboat I’ve been in was a small pleasure craft Mirror Dinghy. But I have been aboard a cruise liner, I have crossed various seas on modern ferries. The smell, sound and general feel of the sea really doesn’t change that much.

For the location of my library in Chingford, North London, I decided to use many of the real places and buildings that are either still there, or were, back in the ‘70s. The library itself is still there in Hall Lane, but alas, it is now offices, not a library. (The Council, shame on them, closed the library due to lack of money.) So the Old Church atop Chingford Mount features, as does the Odeon cinema – no longer there. The blue police telephone box was in Albert Crescent where the buses terminated. Those police boxes, so familiar to us all back then, which is why one was chosen as Dr Who’s TARDIS – even the early scriptwriters could not envision those police boxes would be superseded by mobile phones!

Another decision I made, however, was to change the names of any roads or locations where a murder would take place, (although the names I use instead are fairly similar to the real thing.) I made this choice because I didn’t want to offend or upset anyone living there today. To write about a fictional murder in XXXX Avenue, only to discover there really had been a murder there, I thought, could be a little insensitive.

Fiction is fiction, stories made up with the imaginative bits mixed in with the factual research detail. Using your knowledge of locations can bring that novel to vivid life.

Helen Hollick’s crime fiction (so far):

Jan Christopher #1 A Mirror Murder

Jan Christopher #2 A Mystery of Murder

Jan Christopher #3 A Mistake of Murder

In Book 3 There are a series of burglaries, and an elderly person is murdered. Can library assistant Jan Christopher help discover whether murder was a deliberate deed – or a tragic mistake?

January 1972. The Christmas and New Year holiday is over and it is time to go back to work. Newly engaged to Detective Sergeant Lawrence Walker, library assistant Jan Christopher is eager to show everyone her diamond ring, and goes off on her scheduled round to deliver library books to the housebound – some of whom she likes; some, she doesn’t. She encounters a cat in a cupboard, drinks several cups of tea… and loses her ring.

When two murders are committed, can Jan help her policeman uncle, DCI Toby Christopher and her fiancé, Laurie, discover whether murder was a deliberate deed – or a tragic mistake?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

First accepted for traditional publication in 1993, Helen became a USA Today Bestseller with her historical novel, The Forever Queen (titled A Hollow Crown in the UK) with the sequel, Harold the King (US: I Am The Chosen King) being novels that explore the events that led to the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy is a fifth-century version of the Arthurian legend, and Helen also writes a nautical adventure/fantasy series, The Sea Witch Voyages.

In recent years, Helen has also branched out into the quick read ‘Cozy Mystery’ genre with her Jan Christopher Murder Mysteries, set in the 1970s. The first in the series, A Mirror Murder, includes some of her, often hilarious, memories of working as a library assistant.

Helen’s non-fiction: Pirates: Truth and Tales and Life of A Smuggler.

She lives with her family in an eighteenth-century farmhouse in North Devon where she occasionally gets time to write.

A Mistake of Murder by Helen Hollick available on Amazon or order from any bookstore. Paperback and e-book available.

https://mybook.to/MISTAKEofMURDER

Helen’s Amazon author page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick

Helen’s Website: https://helenhollick.net/

Subscribe to Helen’s Newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/HelenHollick

Through my picture window

Recently, I was asked how living in Spain has influenced my writing. Thinking about it, I realised it isn’t only being in Spain that has affected my fiction, it’s all the other places I’ve lived, studied and worked in as well. Setting aside my time at an American university in what now feels like a previous existence, the cumulative effect is that I have been Latinized. I’m still old-fashioned British at heart, but with something of a Latin outlook.

From my desk here in the Province of Málaga I can see the Sierra de Las Nieves. This was where the Moors of Al-Ándalus used to harvest snow to be collected in summer for sherbet and to keep medicines cool. To the right out of a large picture window is the bandalero country of The Empress Emerald; to the left, beyond mauve-shaded mountains, are ancient fishing villages now known as the Costa del Sol, but once prey to the Barbary corsairs featured in The Chosen Man Trilogy.

On warm days with the window open, there’s that special Mediterranean dry-earth, peppery smell described so well by Laurie Lee in his Spanish memoirs. Today, I can hear a kestrel screaming at her mate from our roof terrace. This view, as you may imagine, is very conducive to creative time travel. If I ignore a nearby road, I can be back in any century I choose.

The Empress Emerald, includes the story of Davina, a naive English girl who leaves Cornwall to live in Jerez during the 1920s. People say a debut novel is always autobiographical, this one certainly isn’t, but some scenes were developed out of my first encounter with my husband’s traditional Andaluz home. This is how I fictionalised it:

They turned a corner into a street of tall grey buildings that appeared to grow out of one another. There was no green save the painted railings of high, narrow balconies. It felt austere, grim, closed in.

The driver stopped the car outside two vast doors, blackened with age and reinforced with iron. They reminded Davina of an illustration in one of her childhood picture-books, Bluebeard’s castle. As if by some sinister magic, a door swung open. Alfonso ushered her into a fern-infested patio. It smelt dank and uninviting. She looked up and around her. The patio was open to the sky, but on all four sides above there were windows. She sensed watching eyes and lowered her gaze.

Before coming to Spain I lived on the Ligurian coast of Italy – hence Ludo da Portovenere in The Chosen Man. The Genoese coastline and the Cinque Terre often crept into Ludo’s narrative – these historical thrillers could so easily have turned into travel brochures.

Portovenere, or Porto Venere, was once the site of a Roman temple to Venus: the perfect romantic location to conclude Ludo’s story in By Force of Circumstance.

It’s a tourist souvenir destination these days, but through my picture window I could easily visualise it in the 17^th century.

Reviewers comment that my books are ‘visual’, which is probably due to my exile’s eye. I’m not a tourist, but I don’t belong either. This was evident when we were posted to the Hague (my husband is a Spanish naval officer). The Dutch way of life was not so different to my English upbringing, the flat, grey landscapes and shut-indoors domesticity, however, came to me after years of a Latin lifestyle. Seeing Holland from this point of view helped when I was writing the first Ludo story, his comments on the rain in Amsterdam come from a Latin heart:

Ludo wove his way listlessly through the crowds, his lack of purpose at odds with the activity around him. Amsterdam teemed with people the way it teemed with rain: quiet, persistent, always there. Not like the tremendous skin-soaking downpours in Liguria that gave way to bright sunshine. The weather in Italy had a sense of drama.

Being a permanent exile can lead to rose-tinted nostalgia of course. Something I exploit in my Bob Robbins Home Front Mysteries, but only to a certain extent. If you’ve ever seen a derelict farm (Private Lives) or been on bleak moorland in a tearing wind, which is how Courting Danger begins, you’ll understand that.

Despite my somewhat Latinized outlook, though, what I see through my Spanish picture window when I am at my desk in Málaga is still with a realistic Englishwoman’s eyes.

Mostly. . .

Good books for summer reads

If, like me, you enjoy novels that takes you into the past and/or far away, check out the excellent Bristish historical fiction author, Deborah Swift. She has a new novel set in 17th century Italy out now, too.

http://author.to/DeborahSwift

If you enjoy gritty, contemporary British police crime fiction, try B.A. Morton’s frightening, heart-rending ‘Crime on the Tyne’.

http://mybook.to/thefavourbank

You can find me and more about my books on the following sites:

Web page: https://www.jgharlond.com

Blog – Reading & Writing: https://wp-harlond.jgharlond.com/

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/JaneGHarlond

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JaneGHarlond

My books: https://www.amazon.com/J.-G.-Harlond/e/B007PDA1Z4

A Place in Past – the Reschen Valley

Many years ago, while we were living in Italy, I visited the Alto Adige, or the Südtirol as it is known in German. We returned on various occasions, winter and summer, and I fell in love with the scenery: the only word for it is ‘dramatic’. But so is the history half-hidden among the ancient alpine passes and modern ski resorts; the difficult past that must have been so hard to bear for people who felt themselves to be Austrian or Tyrolean – not Italian. For this reason, I was drawn to Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger’s award-winning Reschen Valley series.

If you have not come across this writer before, Lucyk-Berger is an American ex-pat living in western Austria. Her natural storytelling skills, and her innate curiosity about how the past shapes our present have formed her into a successful historical fiction writer.

Here is some historical background and a very brief summary of the storyline for the series.
After the Great War, a new conflict in Europe began. When Austria’s Tyrolean province was split in two, the southern half was annexed by Italy. In The Reschen Valley Series, two families cross paths: the Thalers, a Tyrolean farming family, and the Grimanis, an Italian industrial family racing to develop Italy’s new frontiers before a second war breaks out. When the Fascists reveal plans to flood a valley that would drown out the Thalers’ family, both sides must weave their way through a labyrinth of corruption, prejudice and greed.

Q: I asked Chrystyna why she was drawn to write about the Reschen Valley? What was it about the location that caught her interest or imagination?

A: The Reschen Valley is actually called Oberer Vinschgau/Reschia. Imagine driving south over an alpine pass, crossing from Austria into Italy. You might expect Italian restaurants, Italian signs, and Italian architecture, but that’s not what happens. It still looks like the Austrian Tyrol with a few Italian names and the German language is very present.

Keep driving, because here it comes: spread out before you, a beautiful aquamarine-blue reservoir nestled between the Alpine peaks and spreading some four miles into the southern horizon. It takes your breath away. You pass the first town and quickly come upon the next one called Graun / Curon Venosta. And then there it is. Off to the right, some 50 feet from the lakeshore, is a fully intact medieval church tower rising straight out of the water. The valley beneath the lake is the setting of my Reschen Valley series.

It took me almost five years and a lot of German improvement to figure out what the heck happened. The deeper into the history I went, the more mysterious and thrilling the story became, especially in regard to how the reservoir was built.

I was making two or three trips a year there, spending a lot of time in the province and getting to know two cultures: the Austrian Tyrolean one and the northern Italian one. By the time I visited the Reschen Lake reservoir for the tenth time, a whole slew of characters had risen above its surface: a young farmer woman, a sassy innkeeper, an Italian engineer, a German carpenter, a dog. A Fascist colonel. They clambered into my Nissan Micra and never let go.

The real history reads like a thriller. There was an awful lot of planning, and this was years before the European conflict broke out. The risorgimento was a nationalist movement and their belief was that Italy’s borders had been pre-destined by Dante. The nationalists were delighted when England, France and Russia came with a proposal in 1915, the secret Treaty of London, proposing: “Please help us to win the war.”
“Sure,” the Italian nationalists said, “and when we win, we get these territories, especially that Brenner Pass line.”
After WWI, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was completely perplexed by the Italy’s claim to territories inhabited by Slav and German-speaking citizens. It was fully against his proposed 14 points! But that’s another long and tragic story.

Q: You have four of six books completed for the series, and a couple of WW2 novels, too, when will the last two books be finished, and what’s next?

The next book in the series, Two Fatherlands is a monster of a novel but it will be published — come hell or high water — end of October or possibly delaying it to early November to mark the 100 years since South Tyrol’s annexation to Italy. Either way, I will decide in July when I’ve delivered the manuscript. I had to send the book into the corner last November and give it a break. It helped a lot. I’m back on it and in between, I wrote what I thought was just going to be a reader’s magnet, and has turned into a celebrated collection. Souvenirs from Kiev is based on my relatives’ histories during WWII in Ukraine and takes readers on a perilous journey from the Underground to the DP camps of Germany. That release has opened new doors for me!
Also while struggling with Two Fatherlands last fall, I had agreed to join a project with five other authors to put together a collection of novels for the 75th anniversary of the end of WW2. Magda’s Mark appears in the The Road to Liberation collection this May. It is based on a true story about my friend’s husband. Her father-in-law was a district SS officer in Moravia (Czechsolovakia/Sudetenland). When his son was born, the baby was returned to the mother circumcised. Now, can you imagine the repercussions?

As soon as I start asking questions about how, who, what drove them . . . I know I have something I need to write. And a new place to visit. I always travel to the settings of my books.

Q: When this current lockdown comes to an end and we are able to travel again, do you have any specific plans regarding visiting your settings?

Definitely, I will return to Litomerice again before Magda’s Mark is republished as a standalone title, and of course I’ll go to South Tyrol as soon as I can (we were supposed to stop by in June on our way south…) And I hope to return to the Carpathians of Ukraine very soon to write another WWII novel. That is going to be another juicy one. And then I will finish the last book in the Reschen Valley Series. If all goes well, I expect The Rising to release latest at the end of next year.

You can read my review of The Reschen Valley Series (written for Discovering Diamonds Reviews) in the Book Review section of this blog.

Find out more about Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger and her books on the following links:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/inktreks
Twitter: @ckalyna
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/ckalyna
Subscribe to her Newsletter: https://www.subscribepage.com/RSV
Homepage: www.inktreks.com

Reschen Valley Box Set
https://www.books2read.com/u/bppvLg
Souvenirs from Kiev
mybook.to/Souvenirs
Road to Liberation (Featuring Magda’s Mark)
books2read.com/RoadtoLiberation

A Place in History – Israel

Israel in the 1940s – The Laundry Room

by Lynda Lippman-Lockhart

What is there about traveling to foreign ports that is so evocative, compelling, and necessary? I have always been a proponent of getting away, giving into a change of attitude and altitude, and most of all—educating myself and my family. It is good for the soul and certainly good for the brain. There isn’t a trip that I haven’t learned something that has come in handy in the future. Each one of my books arose from a particular place I have visited or lived. Apparently, the place made an impression on me.

The Laundry Room is an example. It all began with a promise and a prayer. The new rabbi at my synagogue stood on the pulpit of his congregation during the High Holidays promising to take a group to Israel in the near future. My husband and I were two of the first to sign up.

I remember arriving at the Ben Gurion Airport and marveling at how modern it was with its clean lines and lack of clutter. Our luggage was right on time, and we loaded our tour bus, finding those familiar to sit next to. Our guide Jeremy, began the tour as soon as the bus left the airport. I don’t know what I expected but was amazed at the melding of new and old in the city of Tel Aviv. The traffic was almost as bad as New York’s. Our first stop was on the Mount of Olives, a part of the Judaean Mountain chain and the ancient Judean kingdom. It was there we beheld Jerusalem and all of its splendor as the sun set in the west, casting a golden glow over the city, hence Jerusalem of Gold, a popular Israeli song. We left the mountain and headed toward the coast and the center of Tel Aviv, a thriving metropolis with signs of bombed buildings next to new. The contrast was startling to say the least.

That night we had dinner at the hotel and then walked to what we were told would be a gathering of people to commemorate Israel’s Independence. What we were not prepared for was the blast of sirens at which time everyone stopped in their tracks, buses, cars, people. There was complete silence for five minutes; and afterward, our guide explained this was their way of thanking all who gave their lives so that freedom would prevail. It took all of us some time to recover from the awe of that moment. At the park, thousands of young people congregated as they listened to one after another speak on freedom and the country. What caught me off guard was how young the military was and how these young people were standing around with guns slung over their shoulders. All citizens eighteen and over are compelled to serve in the military for a minimum of two years—male and female.

The next morning, we were headed to Caesarea. On the way, we passed the technology center of Israel, Herzliya, and continued to a bucolic seaside spectacle. It was here at Caesarea that Herod built a temple dedicated to Tiberius Caesar.

Little remains, but some of the mosaics that have managed to survive time and ware, are magnificent. The clear, aqua waters of the Mediterranean wash gently upon the shore, spilling over into the largest natural pool I’ve ever seen.

We arrived at Masada after passing bands of Bedouins hunkered down with their animals and tents. They live as they did in biblical times. Upon reaching Masada, we were told it was the last stronghold of a band of Judean rebels trying to escape the rage of the Roman soldiers bent on their destruction. Here, in the dusty terrain, high above—in what resembles a southwestern mesa—960 men, women, and children held off 8,000 Roman soldiers for several months. When it appeared their plight was hopeless, they decided to take their own lives instead of becoming slaves of the Romans. They drew straws to see who among them would be the last to take their own life. Standing on the top of the mesa, brings to mind how precious life really is and makes one think of Egypt and the lives of the Israelites before escaping Pharaoh’s domination. The bus trip to the Dead Sea was silent.

Of all of the stops we made, the one that remained with me when I arrived back in the States was the Ayalon Institute (1), not because of its beauty or tragic event, but for courage and dedication to a cause.

I could go on and on, but for some reason, it was the Ayalon Institute that held fast. I tried to do some research when I returned home, but there was little. I wrote to the institute to ask for a brochure, but instead received a personal email from a Judith Ayalon, one of the 45 youth that built, supplied, and ran an underground ammunition factory that would play a major role in the establishment of Israel as an independent country. She and I would correspond for the next two years. The visual of teenagers fashioning bullet casings out of copper or filling those casings with gunpowder is hard to erase. There was nothing special or memorable about the terrain, but what took place there will never be erased from my mind. A well-kept secret until 1986, this historic site has become a major stop for those visiting Israel and a place I will never forget. The Laundry Room covers those historic events from beginning to end.

“Now a museum, the Ayalon Institute was a secret ammunition factory disguised as part of a kibbutz to fool the British back in the 1940s. Jewish people used the factory in their efforts to fight for the independent state of Israel. Organizers went to extreme measures to build and sustain this secret factory within the kibbutz.” (From: https://www.touristisrael.com/ayalon-institute/16168 accessed 14/05/2019)

About Lynda Lippman-Lockhart

Originally from St. Petersburg, Florida, Lynda now lives in Columbus, NC, with her husband and a moyen poodle. Lynda retired from teaching eleven years ago and took up writing after winning first place in the Florida Writers Conference short story contest. She says her first book was a fluke in that she was sitting out on the deck of their summer home with her poodle Bogie and the title Oodles of Poodles came to her. She started writing and the subsequent book became a huge success. The next book was historical fiction, The Laundry Room, mentioned above. Lynda’s latest work is a crime novel Nine Minutes to Kill, which invites the reader to help solve the crime. She is currently editing her next historical novel Con Artist about Goya, the queen of Spain and her lover, and a scandalous painting: ‘The Naked Maja’.

About The Laundry Room:

The British Mandate over Palestine is coming to an end. The purpose of the Mandate was to divide a portion of the now defunct Ottoman Empire into two British protectorates: Palestine, which would include a home for the Jewish people, and Transjordan, an emirate under the rule of the Hashemite family. The problem: how will these two diametrically opposed peoples survive after the Mandate ends? In 1946, when the King David Hotel outside the “Old City” of Jerusalem is bombed, peace-loving Laila Posner becomes a victim. Swept up in the blast, she flies through the air like a dove and lands as a hawk, transformed for all the wrong reasons.
Upon recovery, Laila joins a group of young people—many of whom have been orphaned by the Holocaust—sent to Palestine for protection. Forty-five of these Young Pioneers form a kibbutz and resolve never to let someone else direct their lives. The success of the kibbutz reaches the ears of the Haganah, the Jewish secret police, who approach the kibbutz with a proposition: participate in a clandestine operation to save the Jewish state. It is during her time at the Ayalon Institute—a name given to disguise its activities—that Laila comes of age, taking a leading role in the operation of the kibbutz and running the secret factory.
In the face of daily challenges to survive—volatile compounds, marauding Arabs, and the fear of discovery by the British—Laila finds the strength to go on. Amid the turmoil of the time, a close-knit community is formed, spawning lifetime attachments and love. Laila, however, never forgets the young British soldier who came to her assistance during the bombing of the King David Hotel, which causes friction between her and her kibbutz sweetheart. His intermittent presence in her life leaves her feeling uneasy about her future.
The selflessness of these youths who came to the aid of their country is a testament to how heroes are formed out of ordinary human beings.

For more on Lynda Lippman-Lockhart and her books go to:

lyndalippmanlockhart.com
authorlyndalippmanlockhart.com.You can find more about her books on the Penmore Press website: https://www.penmorepress.com/project/lynda-lippman-lockhart

A Place in History – Fiesole, Italy

Fiesole as Setting for The Contessa’s Easel

by Mary Donnarumma Sharnick

The late novelist Henry James once wrote, “It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.” How insightful his words have been and are for writers who bring their imagined characters to life in geographical settings replete with recorded histories, both societal and individual.

Fiesole, Italy, a picturesque, much-visited, and perpetually-storied Tuscan hill town five kilometers northeast of Florence, offers authors records, artifacts, ruins, architecture, gardens, and artworks prolific enough to ensure careers-long historical contexts. Giovanni Boccaccio set The Decameron here, E. M. Forster A Room with a View. Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, Hermann Hesse’s Peter Camenzind, and James’ own Italian Hours feature the evocative location in their pages.

When I first visited Fiesole with my husband during the summer of 2002, I was smitten. With its ancient Etruscan walls, Roman baths and amphitheater, fourteenth-century town hall, the Monastery of San Francesco, several churches, the novice home of Fra Angelico in San Domenico, the town offered historical narratives at every turn. Villa Le Balze (Georgetown University’s study-abroad campus), Villa Sparta (former residence of the Greek royal family), and numerous other distinguished domiciles each offered detailed accounts about their inhabitants, visitors, interlopers, intimates, and detractors. Living in and near the town for periods of time over the course of the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries have been: French writer Marcel Proust, American art historian Bernard Berenson, German painter Paul Klee, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The town is known as the most affluent suburb of Florence.

Since our initial visit, my husband and I have returned to Fiesole often, sometimes as a couple, other times with student groups we have sponsored. Our most recent trip, in July of 2018, was to conduct research for my fifth novel, its working title The Contessa’s Easel, the anticipated third in a quartet of the Orla Paints Series. While Orla’s Canvas (Penmore Press, 2015), the first novel in the series, and Painting Mercy (Penmore Press, 2018), the second, make frequent and direct references to Fiesole and the fictional Contessa Beatrice D’Annunzio’s villa-turned-orphanage during World War II, The Contessa’s Easel will call Fiesole home, with the main action of the novel taking place there.

Plenty of history contextualizes and informs the narrative, as the action alternates between the novel’s present, the summer of 1989, and its past, the summer of 1944. The raison d’etre for the conflation of the two historical periods is Fiesole’s forty-fifth-anniversary celebration of its liberation from the Nazis (who had seized and occupied Villa Le Balze because of its comprehensive view of Florence below). Among the celebratory events is protagonist and recognized American painter Orla Castleberry’s art exhibition, featuring portraits of Fiesolani in the novel’s present. The same locals had been photographed during the Nazi occupation of the town. The photographs, made available by the Contessa to Orla’s lifelong confidant, attorney and history aficionado Tad Charbonneau, become the primary sources for Tad’s debut history book, The Orphans of Fiesole. In turn, the photographs inspire Orla to seek out Fiesolani who, almost a half-century since World War II interrupted and altered their lives, still live locally. While the 1944 photographs tell their subjects’ stories in medias res, as it were, Orla’s paintings render their personal histories via their faces and bodies interpreted by a painter’s brush. My research in Fiesole revealed a number of actual archived photographs that afforded me the opportunity to inform my own fiction.

In the layering of one historical period over another that occurs through time, 1989 Fiesole found itself responding to the global AIDS crisis. Although AIDS arrived in Italy during the early 1980s, the Ministry of Health, led by Carlo Donat-Cattin, had refused to initiate public education programs even as late as 1988. Not until mid-1989, with the arrival of Donat-Cattin’s successor, Francesco DeLorenzo, did informative television commercials and public education initiatives take hold. Just as Boccaccio’s fourteenth-century pilgrims had fled Florence and the plague for the hills and fresh air of Fiesole, some afflicted and dying of the more recent “plague” also find their way to the Contessa’s villa. Orphanage transforms to hospice. Past function is re-purposed by present need. Several German and Italian and American characters meet, brought together by an epidemic threatening all. Former alliances and misalliances are re-introduced and re-construed in yet another historical context fraught with fear, uncertainty, and imminent mortality.

Also illustrative of historical layering is the Hotel Villa Aurora, just steps from the bus stop in Piazza Mino. Recently closed, the hotel was still in 2018 housing visitors to Fiesole.

Its garden terrace, its contemporary basement bar, and its convenience to Fiesole’s sites made it a stopping place for many. Even as I researched at the hotel last July, I was hard-pressed to imagine the barroom as the prison it had once been for the ragazzi, young men rounded up by the Nazis and doomed to die unless and until the three police officers, the carabinieri, who came to be known and honored as “the martyrs of Fiesole”, came out of hiding in the ruins. The three, a trio of partisans amidst a region of fellow partisans, had carried out acts of resistance for months. Hearing of their fellow Fiesolani’s peril, they did emerge from the shadows. They were shot on the terrace the evening of August 12, 1944 (ironically, after the Allied Forces had already liberated Florence on August 11). Today visitors can honor them on a self-guided walking tour in Fiesole. They are: Vittorio Marandola, Alberto LaRocca, and Fulvio Sbarretti. All were in their twenties.

Just as past merges into present with the historical martyrs’ lives and the monument to those lives, several past relationships in The Contessa’s Easel also develop into present ones. Those relationships, too, are altered by the unrelenting passage of time, vast political changes, as well as town, family, and individual secrets exposed and contradicted. No character is exempt from surprises–some painful, some joyous, all revelatory. Every character must re-assess and re-consider what they knew or thought they knew in 1944, what they know or think they know in 1989. The inevitable and irrefutable corollary, of course, follows as a question: What is the relationship between the historical record and a human being’s experienced life? This is the question The Contessa’s Easel explores.

The late American novelist, E. L. Doctorow once wrote, “The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.”

My goal in The Contessa’s Easel is to invite readers to feel vicariously in a brick and mortar context, a context verifiable by the historical record; to explore the “blur,” the moment when a character’s particular life intersects with social history; and to vivify and render kinetic an imagined place that becomes—at least for the time readers visit it—as real as any historical one. In this case, as real as Fiesole.

About the author

Mary Donnarumma Sharnick is the author of the National Federation of Press women prize-winning novels, Orla’s Canvas and Painting Mercy, both published by Penmore Press. Her previous two novels, Thirst and Plagued, both set in Renaissance Venice, were published by Fireship Press. Thirst is being adapted for the operatic stage by composer Gerard Chiusano and librettists Robert Cutrofello and Mary Chiusano. Mary teaches at FlexSchool, New Haven, Connecticut, and offers a range of writing services to individuals, groups, and schools. She and her husband lead custom-designed tours to Italy, the country Mary considers her second home.

You can find out more about Mary on:

www.marysharnick.com

www.penmorepress.com

Twitter: @marysharnick

Facebook:@authormarydonnarummasharnick

A Place in History – Scotland

A Sense of Place

Scottish author Marie Macpherson explains how her native county of East Lothian provided the foundations for a trilogy.

Hailes Castle

The mist-covered mountains of the Scottish Highlands may have cast a spell over many romantic novelists, but my heart lies in the Central Lowlands where most of Scotland’s political struggles and bloody conflicts took place. The early 16^th century during the turbulent period of the Reformation and the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, has inspired my trilogy based on the life of the Reformer, John Knox.

The rich history of my birthplace has fascinated me, not surprising perhaps, since I was brought up on a battlefield – the Battle of Pinkie fought in 1547 (we lost) – and within sight of Fa’side Castle from where Mary Stewart set off for her last confrontation as Queen of Scots at Carberry Hill (she lost). Digging in the back garden became an archaeological excavation to find buried treasure or the bones of slain soldiers. Other blood-soaked battlefields were within easy reach; Prestonpans (we won), Dunbar (we lost, twice), Athelstaneford, birthplace of the Scottish flag, the Saltire (we won). There’s hardly an inch of turf in the Lothians untrodden by a marauding army and hardly a castle or stately home that is not haunted by a ghost. This instilled in me a strong sense of the past and urged me to explore more deeply the stirring history of my native county. Writing fiction gives my imagination free rein as I attempt to conjure up what life was like for the inhabitants of those now ruined castles and deserted abbeys. Exploring the personal relationships and often hidden motivations of historical characters drive my curiosity.

My journey started off with a very small step, almost a footnote in history, The Treaty of Haddington signed in 1548 which betrothed Mary, Queen of Scots to the French Dauphin and this intrigued me. Several sources mention that this significant event took place at the abbey and for years this was assumed t to be St Mary’s Collegiate Church as there was no abbey in Haddington – except there was – or had been. Sadly, St Mary’s Cistercian Priory, a victim of the Reformation, had been erased from history and memory for centuries. Only a few stones and place names – Abbey Mill, the Abbey Bridge – recorded its existence. Yet, as I discovered, this long-lost priory had been one of the wealthiest religious houses in Britain, presided over by some very unorthodox prioresses, including Elisabeth Hepburn, the reluctant nun, who became my heroine.

Another nugget I unearthed concerned the playwright and makar, Sir David Lindsay, who wrote a scathing satire on the corrupt Roman Catholic clergy. He had been exiled to his estate at Garleton Castle, near Haddington, now a forgotten ruin set amidst farm buildings. Speculating that the fates of the poet and the prioress might be intertwined became the starting point of The First Blast of the Trumpet.

The historic town of Haddington was also the birthplace of another religious figure, the fiery Reformer, John Knox. Because he called himself Giffordiensis, it was assumed he was born in Gifford, a village that did not exist at the time: he was more likely to have been born in Gifford Gate, Haddington.

There was also confusion about his birthdate. 1505 is inscribed on the commemorative plaque beside the oak tree planted by the great Victorian historian, Thomas Carlyle, whereas Knox was probably born around 1513/14. After studying at St Andrews, he returned to Haddington to serve as a Roman Catholic priest and notary. He was ‘pulled from the puddle of papistry’ by the charismatic preacher, George Wishart, who was arrested in St Mary’s Church, despite Knox standing at the foot of the pulpit bearing a two-handed sword to defend him. While Wishart was taken to St Andrews and burnt at the stake, Knox was arrested as a heretic and sentenced to toil for 19 months in the French galleys. Which fate was worse? Knox’s survival from certain death convinced him that God had intervened to save him to become His divine messenger. The First Blast of the Trumpet ends after the signing of the Treaty of Haddington when Queen Mary sails off to France in a galley, possibly rowed by the slave John Knox.

Hailes Castle sets the scene for opening of The First Blast of the Trumpet.

At midnight on a doom-laden Hallowe’en three young lasses sit round the hearth in the West Tower, gazing into the flames trying to divine their future. From this fortress perched high on a rocky outcrop on the banks of the River Tyne, accessible only by a narrow farm track, the powerful Hepburn family, the Earls of Bothwell, controlled the lands of East Lothian. Though now a ruin, this hidden gem retains many features still recognisable enough to fire the novelist’s imagination. In the Great Hall, the earls would host grand banquets prepared in the vaulted kitchen underneath where scullions would turn spits over huge fires; children would scamper up and down the turnpike staircases of the three towers, and prisoners would languish in the two pit prisons or oubliettes – one of which is said to have contained George Wishart after his arrest. What must it have been like to have been lowered down into a pit and left in complete darkness on a freezing winter’s night?

James Hepburn, 4^th Earl of Bothwell, brought Mary, Queen of Scots to Hailes at least twice – if not three times. Firstly, when he abducted her after the murder of her husband Darnley, secondly on their way to Edinburgh to be married and possibly a third time before the stand-off at Carberry Hill where she surrendered to the Confederate lords and he fled into exile.

No self-respecting Scottish castle is without a ghost and Hailes is said to have at least two. The spirit of a man who starved to death in the pit prison because he had fallen in love with the laird’s wife, and a White Lady, said to be Mary, Queen of Scots, reputedly haunt the castle. Although local people claim to have sighted these spirits, I’ve still to experience any ghostly presence. However, wandering about the jagged ruins does send shivers up my spine. If only those stone walls could talk.

The Second Blast of the Trumpet follows the release of Knox into exile, firstly in England and then to Calvin’s Geneva, Frankfurt and Dieppe. Meanwhile, back in Scotland, Prioress Elisabeth Hepburn stands by the Regent, Queen Marie de Guise, in her struggle to hold the throne for her daughter against the oncoming tide of Reformation, led by the Protestant Lords of the Congregation. As they travel round the various royal residences, I try to give a flavour of what life was like in a Renaissance palace such as Falkland or Holyrood, or a fortified castle like Stirling or Edinburgh (none of which were a rocky grotto or bat cave as portrayed in the recent film!).

I’m working on the third part of the trilogy, The Last Blast of the Trumpet, which takes place mainly in Edinburgh where I lived for a time as a student and which has a special place in my heart. The medieval Old Town of Auld Reekie, a labyrinth of cobbled streets, narrow wynds and hidden courtyards, is amazingly well preserved and positively reeks of history, although the steaming midden heaps have long gone. John Knox House, where the reformer lived for a short time before his death, retains many medieval features. The dark oak panelling and painted ceilings make it particularly atmospheric, transporting me back in time to see Knox at his desk writing his fire-breathing sermons to be thundered from the pulpit in St Giles’ Kirk. Every stone and cobble from Edinburgh Castle down the spine of the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace has witnessed conflict and chaos, corruption and cruelty through the centuries. I consider myself very fortunate to have all this history on my doorstep to inspire me as I strive to breathe life into Scotland’s rich past.

About Marie Macpherson

Marie Macpherson hails from from the historic town of Musselburgh, six miles from the Scottish capital Edinburgh, but left the Honest Toun to study Russian at Strathclyde University. She spent a year in the former Soviet Union to research her PhD thesis on the 19^th century Russian writer, Mikhail Lermontov, said to be descended from the poet and seer, Thomas the Rhymer.

After a career teaching languages and literature from Moscow to Madrid, she has found her niche in writing historical fiction which combines her academic’s love of research with a passion for storytelling.

The First Blast of the Trumpet and The Second Blast of the Trumpet are published by Penmore Press. She’s currently working on the third part of the trilogy, The Last Blast of the Trumpet.

Connect with Marie on:

Penmore Press Page: https://www.penmorepress.com/penmore_authors_/marie-macpherson.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/l/B007WAY5NE?_encoding=UTF8&redirectedFromKindleDbs=true&ref_=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1&rfkd=1&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5404227.Marie_Macpherson

WordPress: https://mariemacpherson.wordpress.com/about/

Twitter: @MGMacpherson

Facebook author page: Marie Macpherson

https://www.facebook.com/marie.macpherson.96

Watch the mini-documentary on YouTube:
John Knox and the Birth of the Scottish Reformation: http://youtu.be/40PV0rll6dw

Ancient Iberia

As part of my ‘places in the past’ series, guest author Glenn Bauer has written a fascinating post on why he writes about ancient Iberia.

Iberia, cradle of heroes

A couple of weeks ago, Jane kindly invited me to explain why I was motivated to write about Iberia. There was the obvious explanation of Iberia is where Hannibal Barca stepped into his father’s sandals, but that was not the whole reason or even a large part of it. Why Iberia? To help explain my motives, I should start with a very short summary of the Sons of Iberia series, which is of course set primarily in Iberia.

I self-published the first title, Warhorn – Sons of Iberia, in 2013 and the fourth will be available in the Spring of 2019. The series is set during the 2^nd Punic War which was fought between Carthage and Rome between 218BC and 202BC.

The central characters are native Iberians, the people who were caught between two empires, one old and mercantile, the other young and martial.

You might know this war from tales of Hannibal Barca leading his elephants across the Alps, splitting great boulders with fire and vinegar, and the crushing defeats he inflicted on Rome. Fewer readers will know that this war was sparked by a minor conflict at the walls of an Iberian city made rich by trade and home to a large population of Greeks.

This city was named Saguntum and exists now as Sagunto, a small town just a half hour’s drive to the north of modern-day Valencia. Today, a more recent castle complex guards the long hill on which Saguntum once stood. In exploring the history of Saguntum, known as Arse by the native Iberians, it becomes evident that the people of Iberia experienced successive waves of immigrants washing up on their eastern shore and migrating from north of the Pyrenees. From the diaspora of the people of Troy to the expansion of Phoenician trade colonies, there was an inexorable growth in interaction which benefited the Iberians and the newcomers.

The Iberians of old, were tribal people and regrettably very little is known about them as they did not appear to have developed writing until after contact with Phoenicians and Greeks. What little we do know, is thanks in large part to the ancient historians Livy and Polybius who documented the 2^nd Punic War. We know the Latinised names of the tribes such as the Bastetani (South East), the Turdetani (South) and Illergete (North East). Of all the tribes, the most enduring appear to be the Vascones whose principal town, Iruna, is the site of modern-day Pamplona. The Vascones appeared to have managed to thrive and expand and from them derive today’s Basque people.

Modern archaeology has also contributed to our knowledge with unearthed ruins and artifacts that bare testimony to a people who valued art, built with stone and were talented metalsmiths.

All this is grist to the mill for a writer and if you consider the dearth of contemporary English literature set in ancient Iberia, makes for a compelling reason to write a series of books set on the peninsula.

While the ancient people of Iberia are long gone, their land remains largely unchanged and just as dramatic. The river Tagus which flows a thousand kilometers across Spain and Portugal to the Atlantic from its wellspring in the Fuente de García. The wild coast of the Costa Brava. The moon-like Bardenas Reales. Interesting local settings are vital in creating depth and atmosphere in any tale and from the beautiful blue coastal waters of the Mediterranean to the high mountains of the Pyrenees, Iberia offers a palette of landscapes in which countless deeds of heroism wait to unfold.

The varied Iberian landscape is complemented by an abundance of fauna and flora. Even today, centuries after the industrialization of farming, Portugal and Spain still boast many species that have gone extinct elsewhere in Europe. One such species is the Great Bustard, one of the heaviest flying birds alive and a species that was hunted to extinction in England, the last specimen being shot in 1832. A project to reintroduce Great Bustards to Wiltshire, England began in 2004 and in 2014, fifty-four fertilized eggs were imported from Spain which has the largest pool of these marvelous birds in Europe.

Other wonderful creatures that still roam the wilds of Iberia include the endangered Iberian lynx, brown bear, and Spanish Ibex. The Iberian lynx often features in Sons of Iberia and I begin the series through the eyes of a lynx.

“She would need to move soon despite having just given birth. The mountains were dangerous with winter-hungry wolves. The scent of the afterbirth could easily draw these powerful foes to her newborn. She was young and strong but would be no match for such a pack.”

To experience nature such as the ancient Iberians might have, there are fortunately many incredible nature reserves and protected areas such as the Doñana National Park in southern Spain, a huge swathe of wetlands that offers sanctuary to hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.

In conclusion, Iberia and its people were pivotal in the 2^nd Punic War and yet so little is told of the Iberian people or how the war was fought there. For me, the opportunity to give a voice to an ancient people in the settings gifted by the Iberian Peninsula was one I could not decline.

Glenn Bauer – Sources and links: