Today, I am chatting with Alison Morton about INSURRECTIO, the third novel in the Aurelia strand of her Roma Nova series.
Roma Nova has endured for fifteen centuries, adapting to changing times while holding firmly to the traditions and institutions that define it. But by the early 1980s, those foundations are beginning to fracture. Political divisions are deepening, and Aurelia Mitela finds herself facing an adversary whose ambitions threaten not only her personally, but the future of Roma Nova itself.
Alison joins me today to talk about taking Roma Nova to the brink of political upheaval, the changing responsibilities of Aurelia as a leader, and what happens when the struggle over a nation's future becomes intensely personal.
But first, let's check out INSURRECTIO
Publication Date: 12th April 2016
Publisher: Pulcheria Press
Print Length: 298 Pages
Genre: Alternative History / Political Thrillers
Rebellion in imperial Rome. Not the 3rd century but the 20th century
Caius Tellus wants to seize power in Roma Nova and destroy a system that’s safeguarded its people for over fifteen centuries.
Aurelia Mitela, ex-Praetorian and chief imperial councillor, vows to stop him. But Caius is also on a personal vendetta – to destroy Aurelia herself.
But Roma Nova in the early 1980s is paralysed by a ruler afraid to rule. Old laws are choking reform. Fear sparks riots only to be exploited by the charismatic leader of a rising nationalist movement.
Aurelia fights to combat increasing panic engulfing Roma Nova. Founded at the dusk of the old Roman Empire the tiny state now faces total meltdown.
Part political thriller, part deadly personal rivalry, INSURRECTIO is Roman fiction brought into the 20th century through an alternate history lens with a strong female protagonist with heart and courage leading the action. If you enjoy reading mystery books for women with plenty of twists, this is for you!
INSURRECTIO explores a society on the brink of collapse, where political division threatens the very foundations of Roma Nova. What inspired you to examine this turbulent period in the nation's history?
Roma Nova has always been a society under pressure. It’s survived for fifteen centuries partly because its people are extraordinarily good at adapting while preserving their essential traditions. But at the time we reach INSURRECTIO in the early 1980s, strains that have been building for several years are becoming impossible to ignore.
I was particularly interested about what happens when a society that’s always valued stability and continuity discovers the things that once protected it can also become constraints. Roma Nova is small, intensely interconnected and very conscious of its history, so political disagreements aren’t simply about policies. They can feel like arguments about what Roma Nova actually is.
And, of course, once political division becomes personal, it’s much more dangerous. Debate, compromise and reform begin to give way to fear, unreason and the temptation to believe that your own vision of the future is the only possible one.
Aurelia Mitela has evolved considerably since readers first met her. As chief imperial councillor, she must lead not only through courage but also through diplomacy and political judgement. How has she changed over the course of her journey?
When we first meet her in AURELIA, the first of her own adventures in the series, she’s young, clever, brave and very sure that if something needs doing, she would simply go and do it. That’s quite a useful quality in a thriller heroine — but not necessarily a useful quality in a political leader.
We see in NEXUS, her second adventure, she’s learnt that courage isn’t always about taking action. Sometimes it’s about waiting, listening, negotiating or accepting that you can’t control the outcome. Leadership means carrying other people’s fears and expectations as well as your own.
But I didn’t want her to become some perfectly polished political operator. She’s still Aurelia. She can be impulsive, stubborn and very personally invested in things. The difference is that by the time of INSURRECTIO she understands the consequences of those qualities much more clearly.
Caius Tellus is both a political revolutionary and Aurelia's most determined personal enemy. What makes him such a compelling antagonist, and how did you approach creating a villain whose ambitions threaten both an individual and an entire nation?
The interesting thing about Caius is that I didn’t want him to think of himself as a villain. Most people who believe passionately in a cause don’t wake up in the morning thinking, Excellent, I’m going to be the villain today. They think they’re right.
Caius has a political vision and he’s prepared to go as far as he needs to in order to achieve it. That makes him dangerous, but it also makes the conflict much more interesting than simply good versus evil. He understands Roma Nova and its weaknesses and he knows Aurelia particularly well. So the threat is both political and intensely personal.
I also wanted him to be a credible revolutionary. It’s easy to write someone who wants to destroy everything; it’s more interesting to ask what they think should replace it. Caius has answers to that question and some of his arguments are precisely what make him dangerous.
One of the novel's central themes is the struggle between preserving tradition and embracing reform. How important is that tension to the story, and do you see it as a timeless challenge for societies?
It’s absolutely central. Roma Nova has survived because it has traditions, institutions and a very strong sense of collective identity. But survival and stagnation aren’t the same thing.
One of the things I enjoy about writing Roma Nova is that I can put these questions in a pressure cooker and let them come to a head. What happens when a tradition that once made perfect sense no longer fits the circumstances? Who gets to decide which traditions are essential and which can change? And, perhaps most importantly, how much change can a society absorb before people feel that the thing they’re trying to preserve has disappeared?
Those are hardly uniquely Roma Novan questions. Societies have always had to negotiate between continuity and change. And there’s rarely a simple answer, because both sides of the argument can have very good reasons for believing they’re protecting the future.
Although INSURRECTIO is set in an alternative history, many of its political and social themes feel strikingly familiar. How do you balance creating a fictional world while exploring issues that readers may recognise from history—or even today?
Even though I was inspired (if that’s the right word!) by Germany in the 1930s – the period I studied for my history masters’ degree – I knew the trick was not to make Roma Nova a disguised version of our own world.
It has a different history, different institutions, different assumptions about gender and power plus a very particular relationship with the outside world. So when I write, I’m always thinking about the internal logic of the society and ask, Given everything that has happened to these people over fifteen centuries, how would they react?
However, human beings haven’t changed quite as much as technology has. Ambition, fear, love, loyalty, resentment, tribalism, idealism are nothing new. Readers can recognise the emotional or political patterns even though the setting is different from theirs.
That’s one of the pleasures of alternative history for me. You can hold up a mirror without simply reproducing the real world.
Roma Nova has survived for more than fifteen centuries in your fictional universe. As an author, how do you ensure that its history, politics and institutions continue to feel authentic and internally consistent across the series?
Lots of notes! I always go back and re-read the previous book (and make more notes!) I’m a big fan of spreadsheets. ;-)
Seriously, though, Roma Nova has a timeline, genealogy, political history and institutional history of its own. By this stage of the series, the fictional history has almost become another character. If I establish that something happened three hundred years ago, it has consequences for what happens now.
I also try to think about the why, not just the what. An institution shouldn’t exist simply because it’s convenient for the plot. There needs to be a historical reason why it developed, why people still tolerate it, who benefits from it and who might want to change it.
While no two societies are the same, there are common patterns in history. The development through time of an imaginary country needs to follow historical logic.
INSURRECTIO combines political intrigue with moments of high-stakes action. Which aspect do you enjoy writing most – the tense council chambers where decisions are made, or the dangerous situations where Aurelia must put those decisions into action?
Crumbs, that’s a difficult question! I genuinely enjoy both, but for different reasons.
I love the council scenes because politics is action in another form. Someone sitting quietly at a table can be every bit as dangerous as someone holding a weapon. A carefully chosen sentence, an alliance, a refusal to answer, or simply knowing when to keep silent can completely change the balance of power.
But then I also love throwing Aurelia into situations where all that careful political reasoning has to survive contact with reality! She can make a logical, intelligent decision in a council chamber and then shift her ideas and cope more practically when the world has other ideas.
I like it best when I can make the two come together: the political decisions create the action, and the action changes the political situation. Then the story really starts to move.
Throughout the Roma Nova series, strong women occupy positions of authority without that ever feeling forced. How has creating such a society allowed you to explore leadership from a different perspective?
That was one of the things that impelled me to write Roma Nova in the first place. I wanted to create a society where women having political, military and economic power was completely normal. Not exceptional, not something that needed explaining – simply the natural way the society worked.
That lets me reverse some of the assumptions we tend to bring to historical or political fiction. A woman giving orders isn’t automatically treated as unusual, and male characters aren’t necessarily the default holders of power. It changes the questions you can ask.
But I also didn’t want Roma Nova to be a utopia. Women having power doesn’t magically remove political ambition, inequality, prejudice, family pressures or bad decisions. Women can be just as complicated, ruthless, generous, visionary or foolish as men!
For me, that’s much more interesting than creating a society where women are simply the 'good' leaders. Power changes people regardless of gender.
INSURRECTIO raises the personal stakes for Aurelia as well as the political ones. How do you keep her emotionally grounded while placing the weight of an entire nation's future on her shoulders?
By remembering that she’s still a person who has to eat, sleep, worry, love, get angry and occasionally wonder what on earth she’s got herself into!
It’s important not to let the scale of the plot overwhelm the individual. If Aurelia is simply 'the person responsible for Roma Nova', she becomes a political symbol rather than a character. Like people in any period or place, she needs private relationships and personal loyalties that sometimes conflict with her public responsibilities.
And she doesn’t suddenly stop having ordinary human reactions because she’s become a senior political figure. In fact, the greater the responsibility, the more important those emotional connections become. They’re what remind her what she’s actually trying to protect.
The personal consequences also make the political choices matter. If every decision is simply about an abstract nation, readers could admire the chess game but not engage emotionally. If someone Aurelia loves is caught on the wrong side of a decision or act, suddenly the cost is much more immediate and higher.
Looking back on INSURRECTIO, what do you hope readers remember most after turning the final page – the political intrigue, the action, the rivalry between Aurelia and Caius, or something else entirely?
Of course, I want the political intrigue and action to keep the pages turning. But most of all I’d love readers to remember the characters, especially their motivations and their struggles. Aurelia and Caius have a particularly intense relationship in this book, so I hope that rivalry stays with readers too. But underneath all of that, INSURRECTIO is about people trying to decide what kind of future they want and what they’re prepared to sacrifice to achieve it.
I’d be delighted if readers finished the book arguing about the choices the characters made, rather than simply deciding that one side was obviously right. Roma Nova is at its most interesting when there are no easy answers.
And, naturally, I hope they close the book thinking: I wonder what happens next? The answer is in RETALIO
A huge thank you to Alison Morton for joining me today and taking us behind the political and personal conflicts of INSURRECTIO.
If you enjoy alternative history filled with political intrigue, complex characters, high-stakes action and a fictional world with a richly developed history of its own, then INSURRECTIO is certainly one to add to your reading list. You can find your copy HERE.
Alison Morton
Alison Morton writes award-winning thrillers featuring tough but compassionate heroines. Her twelve-book Roma Nova series is set in an imaginary European country where a remnant of the Roman Empire has survived into the 21st century and is ruled by women who face conspiracy, revolution and heartache but use 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 lives in Poitou in France, the home of Mélisende, the heroine of her three contemporary thrillers, Double Identity, Double Pursuit and Double Stakes.
For the latest news, subscribe to her newsletter at https://www.alison-morton.com/newsletter/ and receive 'Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds' as a thank you gift.
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