GoodReads.com Summary:
New York, present day, alternate reality. Karen Brown, angry and frightened after a kidnap attempt, has a choice - being eliminated by government enforcer Jeffery Renschman or fleeing to mysterious Roma Nova, her dead mother's homeland in Europe.
Founded sixteen centuries ago by Roman exiles and ruled by women, Roma Nova gives Karen safety, at a price, and a ready-made family. Just as she's finding her feet, a shocking discovery about her new lover, special forces officer Conrad Tellus, isolates her.
But the enforcer has crossed to Europe to pursue her. Unable to rely on anybody else, she undergoes intensive training, develops fighting skills and becomes an undercover cop. But crazy with bitterness at his past failures, Renschman sets a trap for her, knowing she has no choice but to spring it...
An alternate history adventure, first in the Roma Nova series
Review:
Series: Roma Nova #1
Genre: Historical Fiction/Thriller
New York, present day, alternate reality. Karen Brown, angry and frightened after a kidnap attempt, has a choice - being eliminated by government enforcer Jeffery Renschman or fleeing to mysterious Roma Nova, her dead mother's homeland in Europe.
Founded sixteen centuries ago by Roman exiles and ruled by women, Roma Nova gives Karen safety, at a price, and a ready-made family. Just as she's finding her feet, a shocking discovery about her new lover, special forces officer Conrad Tellus, isolates her.
But the enforcer has crossed to Europe to pursue her. Unable to rely on anybody else, she undergoes intensive training, develops fighting skills and becomes an undercover cop. But crazy with bitterness at his past failures, Renschman sets a trap for her, knowing she has no choice but to spring it...
An alternate history adventure, first in the Roma Nova series
Review:
Series: Roma Nova #1
Genre: Historical Fiction/Thriller
Release Date: 1 March, 2013
Publisher: Silverwood Books
Purchase: Amazon
ISBN: 9781781320624
Edition: Kindle
Rating: ★★★★★
Review Written: 28 April, 2014
Alternative Histories are fun to read, they show a side to history that all historians, both past and present, enjoy questioning. They focus on the 'What if...' side of the story. Inceptio is no exception to this idea of asking the 'What if' questions, challenging history with the question of 'What if one key person had lost a battle that decided Rome's fate?' and 'What if this splinter cell of Roman descendants broke off and formed their own nation and survived?'
Inceptio starts in modern day New York where Karen Brown is having a very bad day. Having collard a group of teenagers picking on an elderly man, she's found herself in hot water for having punched out the son of a prominent politician. Forced to resign her duties as a volunteer park enforcer, Karen finds that she's slowly getting sucked into what is rapidly starting to feel like a nightmare. She's got a tail on her, though she can't imagine why, and at her regular job, she's trying to put together the biggest presentation of her career so far. Enter Conrad, a stunning man from Roma Nova acting as a translator for Karen's client.
Karen's life, still in shambles from her loss of the park job and the feeling of freedom it gave her, is upended rather unceremoniously as she and Conrad quickly become something more than just business associates. She's quickly introduced to the fact that she's extremely wealthy and she has a living grandmother who is one of the heads of a very prominent family in Roma Nova. Faced with the reality that there are people out there trying to kill her, Karen relinquishes her American citizenship and moves to Roma Nova where she takes up the name her mother had given her, Carina.
Followed by the man who'd been hunting her in New York partly on a personal vendetta again her father, Carina must learn to defend herself and to find a way to incapacitate him or risk being stalked until she's dead.
Morton's novels worried me at first, the sight of a 4 page historical note at the beginning of the book an ominous sign in my sight. The front outline exactly what an Alternative History novel is what's different between our history and the ones for her novels. That said however, I was extremely glad for that note as I dove into the first of Morton's series. Fast paced but captivating, Inceptio proves to be a wonderfully written thriller that left me on the edge of my seat guessing. She cleverly kept all motivations for the ongoing plot hidden, but with clues of what was going on. As with any novel that shifts, it was mildly disconcerting to have a chapter of Renschman's thrown in, but they were short and sweet and gave a lot of clues as to what was going to happen next.
Granted, I recognize that Alternative History isn't a genre for everyone. It's a difficult genre at best if your historical knowledge of our own world is a bit silted. Still, I would definitely recommend anyone who wants to check out a good AH Thriller that this is the one to read.
Alternative Histories are fun to read, they show a side to history that all historians, both past and present, enjoy questioning. They focus on the 'What if...' side of the story. Inceptio is no exception to this idea of asking the 'What if' questions, challenging history with the question of 'What if one key person had lost a battle that decided Rome's fate?' and 'What if this splinter cell of Roman descendants broke off and formed their own nation and survived?'
Inceptio starts in modern day New York where Karen Brown is having a very bad day. Having collard a group of teenagers picking on an elderly man, she's found herself in hot water for having punched out the son of a prominent politician. Forced to resign her duties as a volunteer park enforcer, Karen finds that she's slowly getting sucked into what is rapidly starting to feel like a nightmare. She's got a tail on her, though she can't imagine why, and at her regular job, she's trying to put together the biggest presentation of her career so far. Enter Conrad, a stunning man from Roma Nova acting as a translator for Karen's client.
Karen's life, still in shambles from her loss of the park job and the feeling of freedom it gave her, is upended rather unceremoniously as she and Conrad quickly become something more than just business associates. She's quickly introduced to the fact that she's extremely wealthy and she has a living grandmother who is one of the heads of a very prominent family in Roma Nova. Faced with the reality that there are people out there trying to kill her, Karen relinquishes her American citizenship and moves to Roma Nova where she takes up the name her mother had given her, Carina.
Followed by the man who'd been hunting her in New York partly on a personal vendetta again her father, Carina must learn to defend herself and to find a way to incapacitate him or risk being stalked until she's dead.
Morton's novels worried me at first, the sight of a 4 page historical note at the beginning of the book an ominous sign in my sight. The front outline exactly what an Alternative History novel is what's different between our history and the ones for her novels. That said however, I was extremely glad for that note as I dove into the first of Morton's series. Fast paced but captivating, Inceptio proves to be a wonderfully written thriller that left me on the edge of my seat guessing. She cleverly kept all motivations for the ongoing plot hidden, but with clues of what was going on. As with any novel that shifts, it was mildly disconcerting to have a chapter of Renschman's thrown in, but they were short and sweet and gave a lot of clues as to what was going to happen next.
Granted, I recognize that Alternative History isn't a genre for everyone. It's a difficult genre at best if your historical knowledge of our own world is a bit silted. Still, I would definitely recommend anyone who wants to check out a good AH Thriller that this is the one to read.
Keep an eye out on May 5th for my review of the second novel in this series, Perfiditas!
Thank you, Kathryn, for a detailed and impressive review. I'm so pleased you enjoyed INCEPTIO!
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