Author Talks

I am available to talk about my books and the history behind them. I’ve spoken at the Llandrindod Wells Victorian Week and the Thames Valley History Festival and I’d be happy to talk about speaking to your book group or appearing at your festival – or, indeed, presenting at a school or somewhere like the University of the Third Age (although my books are not really suitable for children). Here are some suggestions based around my books.

The White Rajah

I’ve given a couple of talks about James Brooke, the real-life White Rajah. I’m also happy to give an illustrated lecture about kris, and some of the other weapons that feature in the book.

Heckling is severely discouraged

Cawnpore

There isn’t a lot to be said about Cawnpore massacre (1857) that isn’t in Andrew Ward’s superb Our Bones Are Scattered, but if you ever have a desperate desire to learn more about it, I can give you the key facts.

Burke in the Land of Silver

This book is set around the British invasion of Buenos Aires in 1806. As a frequent visitor to Buenos Aires, I can, perhaps, talk sensibly about the invasion (and the second one the following year) with pictures of Buenos Aires landmarks that featured in the invasions and which still stand today. (I’d be more than happy to talk about tango, too, but that’s really another story as the tango had not come to Argentina in 1806.)

Burke and the Bedouin

When I visited Acre (in modern Israel) I looked at the walls that withstood Napoleon. Napoleon? In Israel? I was puzzled, because Napoleon’s ill-fated expedition to the Middle East is seldom talked about nowadays. Even the astonishing British naval victory at the Battle of the Nile seems to have been forgotten. That’s the background to Burke and the Bedouin and I’m happy to talk about it although I am not going to pretend to be an expert.

Burke at Waterloo

The world is full of Waterloo experts and I’m not one of them. But I do know quite a lot about the battle and I can talk intelligently about the run-up to it and whether, in the end, it mattered that much. I’ve written about this in for various online magazines/blogs and I could talk about it if you want me to.

I’m also happy to talk about the whole business of historical fiction, how one goes about writing it and how important it is to get the history correct. I loved doing that at the Malvern Festival of Military History when they had a brainstorm and invited me onto a panel there.