Writing – and Speaking
This week I went to Stockton on Tees and had a wonderful evening with the always-wonderful Karen Maitland in front of a select audience in the local library – thanks to Claire Pratt and her team for making us so welcome! The hard thing is, such events are slowing. In the past, there were plenty … Continue reading
Templar’s Acre
Just a short taster, folks. The next book in the Templar series is the prequel, Templar’s Acre, a story all about the early years of Baldwin de Furnshill and his time as a pilgrim in the Holy Land. It’s not a crime story, but an adventure story of his time out in the wildest, most … Continue reading
Modern Books, ebooks and Writing
Writing books is a funny way to try to earn a crust. Authors are expected to be slightly odd characters (and most of us can live up – or down – to that), with peculiar insights which can be gained only by using illegal drugs or by excessive quantities of legal ones. I tend to … Continue reading
Review: The Church of Fear
The Church of Fear – Inside the Weird World of Scientology, by John Sweeney (@johnsweeneyroar) – is a stunning read. This book is an in-depth analysis of an investigation into the Scientologists (I cannot give them the title of “Church” because I do not believe an organisation so focussed on money should be given that … Continue reading
Review: The Queen’s Vow – C.W.Gortner
One of the odd things through the year for me is receiving books, unannounced, from publishers who hope for kind words about a book. They’ll often be from a publisher I don’t have any involvement with (like this: Hodder), from people I’ve never met, and with books from people I don’t know, haven’t met, and … Continue reading
The Next Big Thing …
And now: the Next Big Thing – ten questions in ten minutes. Not such an easy concept for an author who spends his time thinking carefully about what he should be writing, revising, editing, and then throwing it away and starting again. Which is actually what happened here, because I carefully wrote what I … Continue reading
Slowness and Ebooks
All right, I know, I’ve been slow to get back to the blog. What with the time spent writing, there’s just not been enough time to write regularly. I’m hoping that will change a little soon, but there are still too many distractions, culminating last month in the death of my lovely old Bernese. The house … Continue reading
Review of WOLF’s GOLD by Anthony Riches, published by Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN 978 1 444 71186 8 For the last few weeks I’ve not had a chance to read anything that wasn’t non-fiction, nor to write anything other than the final version of the first draft of my next book, which is the reason for the lateness of this review. This is the first book of … Continue reading
Betrayal, by Julian Stockwin
There are books I try to avoid, and books I have to buy. To my great shame, there are also books which I haven’t read – mainly, in my defence, because I don’t have that much time to read. I have a lot of books to read before I can write my own ones, and … Continue reading
Lovely New Operating System. Shame about the software …
There are times when you just want to despair. Take a for instance. Last week, hit with a slight glitch on my iMac, I had a brilliant thought. Rather than messing about with a slow system, surely it was time for me to update the operating system. Now, I used to work in computing. I’m … Continue reading
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