I’m a big fan of the Strike television show (I mean, Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger? I’d watch them reading out the phone book – all the while wondering if they’ll ever kiss). The books make for fun beach reading, full of intricate investigations interspersed with the never-ending “will they/won’t they” of Strike and Robin. At over 250K words, it’s a doorstopper . . .
Visiting Tunisia
Tunisia surprised me. A land where the stones remember Carthaginian walls still whispering of empires lost, Roman amphitheatres standing proud against the desert wind. In one day you can walk through millennia: Punic ruins at sunrise, magnificent mosaics by noon, and the echo of gladiators in El Djem by dusk.
But what lingers isn’t only the past but the people. Warm, curious, unflinchingly kind. In cafés and narrow streets you feel a quiet strength shaped by a remarkable, ongoing struggle for equality among themselves and freedom from a past shaped by endless tides of invaders.
#Tunisia #Travel #Carthage #HistoryLives
Exploring Castle Building
Guédelon Castle is one of the most astonishing places I’ve ever visited – a medieval fortress not preserved, but built from scratch using only 13th-century tools and techniques. Every stone, every beam, every rope is a lesson in patience and craft. You can watch blacksmiths forge nails beside masons shaping limestone blocks, hear the rhythmic strike of mallets echo through the forest, and realise how much knowledge the modern world has let slip.
#Guédelon #France #LivingHistory #Craftsmanship #MedievalEngineering
Reading The Ill-Made Knight
I never cease to be jealous of Christian Cameron’s[tag Christian Cameron] talent for blending authenticity with compulsive readability. The Ill-Made Knight is both an ode to the chivalric tradition and a poignant exploration of its flaws. William Gold is both heroic in his aspirations yet all too honest about his own failings. I heartily recommend this first book in what I’ve no doubt is a magnificent series.
Editing Our Lady of Blades
At long last, the novel that’s taken me seven years to write is almost ready for publication. Technically, I’m in the proofing stage, which should mean only checking for typos or continuity, but as my long-suffering publishers know full well, that never stops me from seriously revising a chapter here or there . . . or everywhere.
Visiting Dijon
Dijon is a city that feels like it’s been polished by centuries of quiet pride. Golden roofs, half-timbered houses, and the scent of mustard that’s somehow both comforting and regal. You can stroll through medieval streets where every corner reveals another spire, another café, another reminder that France once built beauty not for tourists, but for itself.
Writing the Path of Swords Book 1
Last year I was delighted to sign a three-book deal with the wonderful folks at aethon books . It’s been such a pleasure to create an entirely new world of fantasy that lurks in the shadows adjacent to our own with its own strange traditions and intricate swords-based magic system.
Les vieux maîtres de sort aiment raconter que la magie a un goût. Les sorts de braise ressemblent à une épice qui vous brûle le bout de la langue. La magie du souf e est subtile, presque rafraîchissante, un peu comme si vous teniez une feuille de menthe entre vos lèvres. Le sable, la soie, le sang, le fer… cha- cune de ces magies a son parfum. Un véritable adepte, autre- ment dit un mage capable de jeter un sort même à l’extérieur d’une oasis, les connaît tous.
'I totally saw this coming,’ Reichis growled, leaping onto my shoulder as lightning scorched the sand barely ten feet from us. The squirrel cat’s claws pierced my sweat-soaked shirt and dug into my skin.
The way of the Argosi is the way of water. Water never seeks to block another’s path, nor does it permit impediments to its own. It moves freely, slipping past those who would capture it, taking nothing that belongs to others. To forget this is to stray from the path, for despite the rumours one sometimes hears, an Argosi never, ever steals.