Burke in Ireland
From 16 September, ‘Burke in Ireland’ will be just 99p on Kindle for five days. Sales of the Burke books have fallen off a little over summer so I decided to do a price promotion on one of them and, from an admittedly limited selection, this was the one readers came...
Galbraith & Pole
I imagine that everybody who reads this blog has realised by now that I write historical fiction. What I think some people still don't know is that I have a sideline in Urban Fantasy. I enjoy writing Urban Fantasy. It takes more research than I had expected. Sometimes...
Summertime and the writer is lazy
It's Thursday and I have to turn my mind to tomorrow's blog post. My mind, though, is resolutely refusing to turn itself to anything remotely useful. We haven't had a summer holiday this year – just a few long weekends in England. The last week has seen some of the...
The Victorian Fascination with Murder
This week I welcome Antoine Vanner to my blog where he is writing about murder most foul. --------------------------------------------------------------- I have always enjoyed George Orwell’s essays, not only for the variety of the topics and the clarity of his...
What did Napoleon do for us (and Europe)?
There’s more to Napoleon than you think Many Napoleonic wars enthusiasts dismiss Napoleon as a tyrannical megalomaniac who was good for nothing but war and who achieved little that benefitted France. This ignores the introduction of the prefecture system which enabled...
The Battle of the Nile
Last week was the anniversary of the Battle of the Nile back in 1798. Nowadays we associate Nelson so firmly with Trafalgar that his other victories can be overlooked. Back in the early 19th century, though, the Nile featured prominently on memorials like this one at...
Beting Marau
This week’s blog marks the anniversary of another massacre. Sorry about that. This one was on 31 July 1849 and, yet again, was a result of the clash of cultures when Europeans began to rule countries in the Far East. In this case, it wasn’t technically colonialism...
The Battle of the Pyramids
It's till summer, so here's a short post to allow you the maximum possible time out in the sun. Today (21 July) is the anniversary of the Battle of the Pyramids, which gave Napoleon control of Egypt. It features in the upcoming Ridley Scott film, Napoleon, and you can...
The Massacre at the Bibighar
It's Thursday evening and I have no idea what people would like me to write about for tomorrow. I do ask suggestions from time to time but I don't get an awful lot of feedback, especially at this time of year when I think people have more interesting things to do than...
Bristol
It's summer and everybody has better things to do with their time than sit and read my blog post. My beloved and I have been away for a couple of days having much more fun than if I'd stayed home writing. We've been to Bristol, so our trip has had a historical element...