Book Title: INCEPTIO (10th Anniversary hardback)
Series: Roma Nova
Author: Alison Morton
Publication Date: 28 March 2023 (original ebook and paperback 1 March 2013)
Publisher: Pulcheria Press
Page Length: 390
Genre: Thriller
INCEPTIO
Alison Morton
Blurb:
“It's about Roman blood, survival and money. Mostly yours."
In an alternative New York, Karen Brown is running for her life. She makes a snap decision to flee to Roma Nova - her dead mother's homeland, the last remnant of the Roman Empire in the 21st century. But can Karen tough it out in such an alien culture? And with a crazy killer determined to terminate her for a very personal reason?
Stifled by the protective cocoon of her Roma Novan family, deceived by her new lover, she propels herself into a dangerous mission. But then the killer sets a trap - she must sacrifice herself for another - and she sees no escape.
A thriller laced with romance and coming of age, this first in series is Roman fiction brought into the 21st century through the lens of alternative history and driven by a female protagonist with heart and courage.
This 10thAnniversary hardback edition includes bonus content: Three character ‘conversations’, two short stories and the story behind INCEPTIO.
Buy links:
INCEPTIO 10th Anniversary special edition hardback:
International Buy Link: https://mybook.to/INCEPTIOHardback
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BTXR81DZ
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTXR81DZ
Amazon AUS: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BTXR81DZ
Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BTXR81DZ
Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Inceptio/9791097310363
Your local bookshop or library
All other formats (ebook, paperback, audio)
https://www.alison-morton.com/books-2/inceptio/where-to-buy-inceptio/
Author Bio:
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 ancient Roman Empire has survived into the 21st century and is ruled by women who face conspiracy, revolution and heartache but with a sharp line in dialogue. INCEPTIO starts the adventure…
She blends her fascination for Ancient Rome with six years’ military service and a life of reading historical, crime and thriller fiction. On the way, she collected a BA in modern languages and an MA in history.
Six full-length Roma Nova novels, including INCEPTIO, have won the BRAG Medallion, the prestigious award for indie fiction. SUCCESSIO, AURELIA and INSURRECTIO were selected as Historical Novel Society’s Indie Editor’s Choices. AURELIA was a finalist in the 2016 HNS Indie Award. The Bookseller selected SUCCESSIO as Editor’s Choice in its inaugural indie review. The Historical Novel Society recently selected JULIA PRIMA, the first Foundation story set in the 4th century, the accolade of Editors’ Choice.
Alison lives in Poitou in France, the home of Mélisende, the heroine of her two contemporary thrillers, Double Identity and Double Pursuit. Oh, and she’s writing the next Roma Nova story.
Social media links:
Connect with Alison on her Roma Nova site: https://alison-morton.com
Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alison_morton
Alison’s writing blog: https://alisonmortonauthor.com
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5783095.Alison_Morton Alison’s Amazon page: https://Author.to/AlisonMortonAmazon
Newsletter sign-up: https://www.alison-morton.com/newsletter/
Book Excerpt:
Excerpt 1 [Chapter 1]
The boy lay in the dirt in the centre of New York’s Kew Park, blood flowing out of both his nostrils, his fine blond hair thrown out in little strands around his head. I stared at my own hand, still bunched, pain rushing to gather at the reddening knuckles. I hadn’t knocked anybody down since junior high, when Albie Jolak had tried to put his hand up my sobbing cousin’s skirt. I started to tremble. But not with fear – I was so angry.
One of the boy’s friends inched forward with a square of white cloth. He dabbed it over the fallen boy’s face, missing most of the blood. Only preppy boys carried white handkerchiefs. Aged around eighteen, nineteen, all three wore blazers and grey pants, but their eyes were bright, boiling with light, cheeks flushed. And their movements were a little too fluid. They were high. I dropped my left hand to grab my radio and called it in. Passive now, the second boy knelt by the one I’d knocked down. The third one sat on the grass and grinned like an idiot while we waited. If they attacked me again, I had my spray.
Keeping my eyes fixed on them, I circled around to the slumped figure lying a few steps away on the grass. Their victim. I laid two fingers on his neck and thankfully found a pulse. After a glance back at his tormentors, I bent my face sideways and felt his breath on my cheek. He groaned and his body tensed as he tried to move. A battered, brown felt hat lay upside down by the side of his head of long silver and black hair stiff like wire. He opened his eyes. Dull with sweat and grime, the red-brown skin stretched over high cheekbones showed he had to be an Indigenous. Well, damn. What was he doing this far east, away from the protected territories?
I heard path gravel crunching as Steff appeared through the cherry blossom cloud, driving his keeper’s buggy with Tubs as shotgun.
‘Karen?’
‘One with a bloody nose, and all three for banning. Tell Chip I’ll do the report as soon as I finish here.’
They herded the three delinquents onto the buggy. Before they left, I helped myself to dressings and swabs from the emergency kit in the buggy trunk. I had to get back to their victim. He sat up and put his hand to his head. He shrank back, his eyes full of fear when he saw me. Maybe it was my green uniform, with its park logo and ‘Autonomous City of New York’ stamped on the shoulder.
My hand started to throb, but I managed to unscrew the top of my water bottle and gave it to him.
‘C’mon, old guy, drink this.’
He lifted his face, grabbed the bottle and drank it in one go. His Adam’s apple bounced above a grimy line on his neck around the level of his disintegrating shirt collar. And he stank. But, right now, he needed my swabs and Band-Aids. Under a diagonal cut on his forehead, a bruise was blooming around his eye to match the one on his jaw. His hand was grazed, with bubbles of blood starting to clot. I cleaned his wounds, speaking calming words to him as I bandaged him up.
‘Okay, let’s get you to the nearest hospital,’ I said, but, as I lifted my radio again, he seized my wrist.
‘No,’ he said.
‘It’s okay, there’s a free one, the other side of the park in Kew Road West.’ Which was just as well, as he plainly couldn’t pay private.
‘No. Thank you. I’m well. I can go now.’
The anxious look in his dark eyes swung between my face and the safety of the tall trees. I’d have to call in for the Indigenous New York Bureau number. As I spoke to Chip, I looked over the lake at the old wood boathouse on the far side. Beyond the trees behind it, the windows in the red-brick Dutch highhouses along Verhulst Street threw the full sun back. When I turned around, the old man had disappeared.
‘You did okay, Karen,’ Chip said later in his office. ‘Little jerks. They’ve been processed and taken to the south gate. I checked with the Indigenous Bureau for reported wanderers, but they had none listed.’ He grinned at me. ‘Jeez, the woman there was so prickly and made me feel like Butcher Sherman.’
Every kid knew from school the Indigenous had been more or less protected until the British finally left in 1867, but that, almost as the door shut, a rogue officer in the new American army ordered the massacre of Sioux and Cheyenne on an industrial scale. A hundred and fifty years on, the Indigenous Nations Council in the Western Territories still reacted like it was yesterday. I was more than pleased I hadn’t had to make that call.
I filed my report among the pile of paper in Chip’s in-basket and thought nothing more of it until, after a tedious week shut in my office at my regular job, I was back on duty in the park the next weekend.
That Saturday morning, I changed into my green pants and tee in the locker room and pinned on my team leader badge. The May sunshine would bring out people in droves. I picked up my volunteer’s folder from the wall rack. Hopefully, I was back on meet-and-greet supervising, instead of patrol. I could walk all day in the fresh air, greeting visitors, giving directions, answering park- related questions, laughing with the sassy kids, and helping the lost and crying ones find their parents. I knew every corner of the park from north to south, the history back to Vaux and Olmstead, who’d founded it with a huge grant from the Royal Kew in England.
I hummed a little tune and anticipated the sun on my skin. But all there was inside the folder was a note to report to the park director. What was that about? I’d met him twice before when I’d been awarded commendations, but never seen him around the park itself. Not on weekends.
The sour expression on his face told me I wasn’t here for an award. Chip stood with his back close to the far corner, no sign of his usual jokey grin. I was not invited to sit on the green-padded chair this side of the director’s desk.
‘Miss Brown.’ The director frowned at the sheet of paper in his hand. He looked up. ‘Show me your right hand.’ He spoke in a hard, closed tone. He took hold of my hand and twisted it over, not caring when I winced. He glanced at the purple and yellow skin around my knuckles, grunted and let go.
‘You are dismissed from the Conservancy Corps, with immediate effect. Hand your uniform, ID and any other park property to your supervisor and leave within the next thirty minutes. You have become an embarrassment to the Autonomous City of New York. We cannot stop you as a member of the public entering the park, but you will be watched. That is all.’
I couldn’t believe it. I took a deep breath and grasped the back of the chair.
‘But why are you kicking me out? What have I done?’
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