Seren struggled to stifle a shuddering sob as she let more memories drift through her mind. She risked a glance toward Livia, lying next to her in the bed—no harm done. The woman still breathed evenly and had not moved.
The memories flooded her mind. First her father, who had singled out Seren, his eldest daughter, to learn not only some of the strange conqueror’s language, but also some of the wisdom usually reserved for sons. From him she’d learned the name of the town she now knew to be her new home. Her grandmother—now beyond the curtain, but still able to make contact, who had tutored her in the special powers they both shared. She’d not heard from Grandmother since being captured, but she was confident the presence had not left her.
She knew it was her tribe—the Silures—who had held off the Roman conquest of Wales for more than two decades. The stories of that campaign more than a century earlier were still shared around her family’s hearthfire on winter evenings. Her father was descended from the famous warrior who had led the campaign—a connection that had proven useless so far in this more peaceful era. Would he rise up and come to her rescue? More likely, her family would accept that her captors held all the power, and they’d choose not to disturb the peace or draw attention to themselves. Scipio must have calculated this when he selected her.
Taking another deep breath, Seren let the memories fade and welcomed the allure of sleep.
Guest Post
Off and on for the last several months, I’ve been devouring fiction set in the first four centuries AD, focused on the Celtic peoples and the Roman occupation of Britain. So it’s probably no accident that sometime last winter, my husband and I unearthed a plot fragment we’d played with and never followed up on: What if a young Welsh tribeswoman was captured by a high-ranking Roman soldier to be a courtesan for him and his wife, and was separated forever from her only child, a daughter? And then, what if it’s her task across time to re-unite her family through bringing together a descendant of her daughter and a descendant of her subsequent Roman son?
Seren’s Story, a two book erotic romance series, is the result. Book One, Two Seeds are Sown, has just been released at Extasy Books, and Book Two, From Beyond the Curtain, will follow in July.
When the Romans invaded the British Isles, they began in the south and reached what is now Wales in about 48 AD. The wild tribes they encountered there presented some of the fiercest early opposition. Welsh folklore has immortalized one of the last Welsh resistors to yield to the Romans: Caractacus (or Caradoc),the leader of the Silures tribe, who lived in southeast Wales in the lowlands along the northern shore of the Bristol Channel.
To subdue the indigenous peoples, the Romans established forts, built roads so they could rapidly move their armies, and developed one town. Venta Silurum was located in what is now Caerwent, a mile or two off the channel and roughly 8 miles east of Newport. Caractacus himself was ultimately captured and taken to Rome, where he died in 54 AD.
We’ve found nothing to indicate whether or not he left children behind in Wales, but we’ve chosen to believe he must have done so. In our fictional account, Seren’s father is a local Silures chieftain directly descended from Caractacus, who lived over a century earlier. Seren has inherited not only his standing and his fierce determination, but also several psychic gifts from her grandmother, including divination, the ability to time travel, and metaphysical communication with others. These characteristics and talents form the kernel from which our story has grown.
Together we have published more than fifty romance novels and novellas to outstanding reviews. Whether readers open our romantic suspense or our erotic romance, they can expect characters they care about, hot sex scenes, and a compelling story.
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