Cover reveal: Burke and the Lines of Torres Vedras
I’ve just finished the latest of my books about James Burke. It’s been over a year since the last one but I produced the second Galbraith & Pole fantasy novel in between. (If you haven’t read Galbraith & Pole yet, do give them a try. They will make you see...
Sneak preview of the next Burke book
Every so often I try to improve my mind (and maybe even my writing) by going to an online lecture. I went to one on audiobooks that explained how to make your own recordings. It was interesting and I did give it a go. It was fun and I ended up producing my very own...
The Gods of Tango: Carolina De Robertis
My blog is called History and Books and Dance and Stuff so a historical fiction book about tango ticks pretty well all the boxes. And The Gods of Tango has quite a lot of Stuff too. In fact it’s a vast, sprawling work about tango and Buenos Aires and Italy and...
Legacy: Chris Coppel
This is a straightforward supernatural horror story. It isn't the sort of thing I would usually read, but the author contacted me and asked if I might be interested in reviewing it. I read the first couple of pages and found myself immediately drawn into the tale, so...
Blowing my own trumpet
I am British and grew up in an age when telling people about your achievements was regarded as bragging and rather looked down on. Nowadays, attitudes have shifted. If you want to get on in the world, we are told you should adopt the American approach of making sure...
This Bloody Shore: Lynn Bryant
Is Lynn Bryant a Marvel fan? I ask because she seems to be basing her considerable literary output on the 19th century equivalent of the Marvel Universe: a Napoleonic Universe, so to speak. The core stories are her Peninsular War Saga, which follows one regiment...
Is there more to life than James Burke? (Spoiler: yes.)
I was thrilled to get a lovely 5* review of ‘Burke in the Peninsula’ this week. This is 5-star reading for those enjoying military history, and readers should be aware of other works by author Tom Williams who uses Burke’s career as settings both before and after the...
Why Cawnpore?
Last week somebody asked me what it was about Cawnpore that made me want to write about it. Cawnpore was originally published over ten years ago so that’s a long time to think back. I remember quite vividly what it was that first triggered my interest in the events of...
Who are you and what do you want from me?
Usually these days, I write my Friday blogs on Thursdays or, at very least, have a good idea by then of what I'm going to talk about. This week, though, I'm sitting here in the middle of the morning with very little idea of what I'm going to say. Part of the reason...
Wellington’s Smallest Victory
I've long been fascinated by the way in which the British claimed Waterloo as a British, rather than an Allied, victory – particularly as only a minority of the troops under Wellington's command were actually British. The insistence that the British essentially pulled...