Introducing 757, the first book in the brand new series, The House of Mercia #fiction #nonfiction #Mercia
Here’s the blurb for 757
This is Mercia. The year is 757. A king will fall. A king will rise. But first, civil war will rage.
King Æthelbald’s forty-year vice-like rule over Mercia has been rigid. But he lacks a legitimate heir despite his insatiable bedchamber antics.
Offa must stand hostage to his family’s good behaviour, when his father missteps in removing his mother from Æthelbald’s bed. Shockingly, his younger sister now replaces her.
But the king isn’t finished with his denigration of Offa’s noble House. When his parents are traitorously killed, Offa’s resentment grows, compounded by the ridicule heaped on him by King Æthelbald’s oathsworn warriors.
With the king’s health deteriorating, the matter of the succession becomes paramount. There are plenty who share a claim to the kingship.
Discord threatens to fracture the mighty realm, and those with sword and shield, seax and spear are prepared to risk it all to be the future king of Mercia.
The background to the House of Mercia – AKA what happens after the Gods and Kings trilogy
If you’ve been with me for a while, you’ll know I’ve written about Mercia in many of the centuries of its existence. Until now, I haven’t ventured into the eighth century and many of you might not have read the Gods and Kings Trilogy (there is still time to get it read before House of Mercia hits the shelves), and even if you have, there’s a century between the final events of Warrior King (655) and the beginning of 757, the first book in The House of Mercia series. So, I thought it was time to add some flavour to this century.
The Gods and Kings trilogy follows a collection of mighty warrior kings in Saxon England from the 620s to the 650s, as the ‘larger’ Saxon kingdoms were forming – (Northumbria from Bernicia and Deira) (Mercia from the heartland of Mercia centred around the area of the Tomsæte (yep, they get a mention in the Dark Age Chronicles) to include the kingdoms of the Hwicce, the Magonsæte, Lindsey and Elmet). Of these, it’s the brother kings Eowa and Penda that most concern us, as they were both kings of Mercia, claiming descent through Pybba (and it’s this genealogy that leads us back to Wærmund (from the Dark Age Chronicles), and even mentions an Icel (do you see what I did there?)
Whatever the exact relationship between the two brothers (as explored in the Gods and Kings trilogy), they ruled one after another, Eowa falling at the battle of Maserfeld in 642, against the Northumbrians and Penda outliving him to rule until his death in 655. (There’s also another shadowy brother, possibly sharing a father but not a mother, Cuthwalh, who is important. He was never a king of Mercia, but his existence (if he existed) is very relevant to events in the eighth and indeed, ninth century.)
Eowa had children when he died. Penda also had children. As the brother who ruled second, the kingdom of Mercia was bequeathed to Penda’s children, first Pæda (his son, who didn’t rule for very long), then Wulfhere (Penda’s son 658-675), Æthelred (Penda’s son, who abdicated in 704 and died in 716), Ceonred (Wulfhere’s son, who ruled from 704-709 and abdicated to travel to Rome), Ceolred (Æthelred’s son, from 709-716) and then Coelwald, who briefly succeeds and is assumed to be another son of Æthelred, until the line passes to that descended from Eowa, through his son or daughter (I think in the Gods and Kings trilogy I’ve made Alweo a daughter), Alweo, in the figure of Æthelbald, while Offa’s line descended through the other brother, Osmod. (Looking at this, I can’t help thinking that a little less religious fervour might have been to the advantage of the ruling line of Mercia – but of course, this was the time of conversion – Wulfhere is said to have been the first Christian king of Mercia (although Pæda also converted, but sadly, met a sticky end). The relationship between Mercia and Northumbria at the time was, I think ‘messy.’
So, that all seems quite complicated. At this time, Mercia was very often in conflict with the kingdom of Northumbria, and indeed, a number of assassinations occur. Pæda is killed by his wife (a Northumbrian). A daughter of Penda also marries one of Oswiu’s sons, Alhfrith. The Northumbrian king, Oswiu (the cheek of it), then briefly rules Mercia, until he’s driven from Mercia by Wulfhere (Penda’s son), who then becomes king. Wulfhere endeavoured to defeat the Northumbrians, then being ruled by Ecgfrith (half-brother of Alhfrith), the son of Oswiu, but failed, whereas Wulfhere’s brother, Æthelred, was later successful. These two battles fascinate me, and if you’ve read my short story, A Father’s Son, which you can download here and join my mailing list) it’s the very beginning of a project where I hoped to tell the story of these two battles, the one where Northumbria is triumphant, the other where Mercia sets the record straight, but I’ve never quite found the time.
This succinct account then brings us to Æthelbald, an old man by the time The House of Mercia takes place, but one who evidently ruled well throughout his 41 years – quite an astonishing feat at the time. It’s believed he lived for some time in exile before becoming king, perhaps in the kingdom of the East Angles, when her king, Ælfwald, ruled. It seems evident, therefore, that there was some discord in Mercia at the time between the potential ruling houses. While Eowa’s son hadn’t endeavoured to claim the kingship of Mercia (I think he died, but maybe that was what I had happen in the Gods and Kings trilogy), his descendants were more ambitious. So, this brings us to the events of 757, the first book in the House of Mercia series. What comes next will form the narrative.
The Repton Stone at Derby Museum, believed to be a depiction of King Æthelbald riding a horse (please note, the museum was being renovated when I visited. It’s not usually displayed like this).
It’s cover reveal time for Storm of Mercia. Return to the world of young Icel in the ninth book in the Eagle of Mercia Series. #coverreveal #preorder #histficbook
Wessex has never been Mercia’s ally, neither has it been her only enemy.
Wessex, AD836
The Viking raiders’ devastation has been halted once more by the shields of Mercia as opposed to Wessex. But their whereabouts are unknown.
King Wiglaf of Mercia is keen to ensure the Viking raiders are swept from his shared border with Wessex but these Viking ships are quick and difficult to track and Icel is once more deployed with Ealdorman Ælfstan warriors to do his King’s bidding. However, Icel’s quest is beset with many more obstacles and it’s not all about the seax and shield.
Worrying news from home overshadows Icel’s every deadly encounter. Will the storms of war keep him away or has he time to make one more desperate journey back to Tamworth?
With raging seas driving him ever further from Mercia’s shores, and the threat of a new conspiracy against the Mercian kingship will Icel overpower the sands of time, or will he be defeated by his deadliest nemesis yet?
It’s happy release day to Lords of Iron, the third and concluding book in the Dark Age Chronicles Trilogy. Let’s talk about battle standards #newrelease #MenOfIron #WarriorsOfIron #LordsofIron #histfic
Battle standards
Well, here we are my friends, book 3 in the Dark Age Chronicles concludes this foray to the ‘Dark Ages’ (a term I don’t like but is correct for this time period). I thought I’d address the idea of battle standards.
As many stories as I’ve written about war, I’d never considered the battle standard. My editor mentioned to me that ‘they make for great cover ideas,’ and so I did a little bit of research and discovered some information about them, but it was actually in an ‘ask the historian’ section with Mike Everest hosted by the History Quill that I discovered battle standards might not have been fabric at all, but rather perhaps made from metal and more hollow depictions of whatever the battle standard was to be (so perhaps more similar to the Romans and their eagle standards).
As such, I have touched on this idea in Lords of Iron. As often as I’ve tried to place myself in my characters’ boots, I’ve perhaps overlooked how difficult it might be to find your fellow warrior in the middle of a battle. Below are two images which might have served as an idea of what a battle standard might have looked liked. As you can see, these are very far from being huge banners made of fabric. They are much more intricate, or so it appears. In Warriors of Iron, Wærmund encounters such a battle standard and then hungers to have one constructed for himself. I can see why.
It’s happy release day to Lords of Iron, the third and concluding book in the Dark Age Chronicles Trilogy. Watch and listen to a short recording about the research books I used #newrelease #MenOfIron #WarriorsOfIron #LordsofIron #histfic
A whizz through the research books I used when writing the Dark Age Chronicles
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It’s nearly happy release day to Lords of Iron, the third and concluding book in the Dark Age Chronicles Trilogy. Let’s talk about Wærmund, warrior of the Gyrwe #newrelease #MenOfIron #WarriorsOfIron #LordsofIron #histfic
Wærmund, warrior of the Gyre
Wærmund, the lead male point of view in the Dark Age Chronicles, has come a long way since our first encounter with him, when he was young, angry, reckless and unable to assure himself of the loyalty of others. (I’m not saying he didn’t have cause to be angry).
While I’ve written novels in this era where the main male lead is strong and fiercesome (as well as treating everyone to young Icel), I’ve not really written a character like Wærmund before. One early reviewer complained he was ‘annoying’ and that was intentional. For him to become the character I needed him to become, he couldn’t start the novels ‘fully formed.’ I needed him to learn, grow, and become someone more thoughtful than his angry young self allowed.
Along the way, he’s had much cause to doubt himself, and really, it was Heafoc, his loyal warrior, who was the most fully formed of the warriors who pledged their often dubious loyalty to Wærmund. Heafoc, perhaps very much cast in the shadow of the rather wonderful Wulfstan from the Earls of Mercia series, and potentially, also the older Icel from The Last King books, was the epitome of a Saxon warrior, whereas Wærmund wasn’t. Indeed, in deciding to run away from his home, Wærmund hoped to outrun his past, which was never really going to be possible for him.
Now, as we turn to the concluding book in the trilogy, I feel Wærmund has come full circle. Is he, perhaps, now a better man than his father? Or, is he still driven by the desire to show his father he is the ‘better’ man? These are some of my favourite quotes from Wærmund in the final book.
You will need to read Lords of Iron (available from 5th January 2026) to discover whether Wærmund enacts his vengeance against his father. Enjoy.
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It’s nearly happy release day to Lords of Iron, the third and concluding book in the Dark Age Chronicles Trilogy. Here are the original (very long) historical notes for Men of Iron #newrelease #MenOfIron #WarriorsOfIron #LordsofIron #histfic
The original historical notes for Men of Iron (they were so long I rewrote them)
This is not really a story of historical fiction, but rather archaeological fiction. Pick up any non-fiction history book on Britain at this time, and you’ll find very little written about what was happening, because we do not know what was going on, other than perhaps in the south and south-west (where there was more continuity from the earlier ‘Roman’ period). If it’s a book about Mercia, there’ll be even less until the seventh century. It’s impossible to write about the history of a kingdom when there are no written records. And so we must rely on archaeology.
The decision to write about these formative years in what would become Mercia has been a long time coming for me (and it is set mostly in what would become Mercia although the name never appears in the books).
All that can be said with any certainty about Mercia is that a narrative had formed by the eighth century which was an attempt by the rulers of that time to explain how they came to be in control of the heartland of Mercia. It also attempt to explain how they ruled the wider Mercian kingdom (which included many other tribal affiliations: from the North Mercians, South Mercians and Middle Mercians to the outlying areas – the kingdom of the Hwicce, alongside that of the Magonsæte, being two of the best known tribal areas which people have heard about, and the Hwicce the region where I’ve based the Eorlingas). Bede, writing his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, finished by 734, knew some of these details, although he really did not like Penda the pagan – one of the most powerful Mercians in the seventh century (who it’s believed may have been from the Hwiccan kingdom) – but did grudgingly admit that his contemporary ruler of Mercia, Æthelbald, was a powerful individual, eclipsing the kings in his homeland of Northumbria by the eighth century.
Barbara Yorke has written:
The surviving sources allow us to say with confidence little more than that the kingdom of Mercia was in existence by the end of the sixth century. p. 102, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England
How that kingdom came about, we do not know. I’ve chosen the date of this series carefully. It falls between the Battle of Camlann, said to have taken place in 537 according to the Welsh Annals, a later written source, and a later battle between ‘kings’ which occurred in the 570s and is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written 300 years after these events.
It’s difficult to determine any cohesive narrative from what is truly the Dark Ages for the whole of Britain. Others might look to the stories of the legendary Arthur (no, I don’t believe he existed), and Hengist and Horsa and think that’s enough, but having read K. R. Dark’s fascinating look at Britain at this period, Civitas to Kingdom, many years ago, I realised that what happened elsewhere might not have happened in Mercia, and equally, that generalisations shouldn’t be used about what would become the Saxon kingdoms in any single part of it. It was an island of petty tribal chieftains. It was not a country or a kingdom. This is an attempt to make some sense of what archaeological findings have been made and devise something that ‘could’ have happened. These people did not exist as I have named them, although I have adopted tribal names that are recorded in a later document (see below).
Wærmund is a name taken from a Mercian genealogy found in the Welsh Annals. There are a number of different variants of a Mercian genealogy. This is the one I’ve used, below.
Woden begot Watholgeot, begot Waga, begot Wihtlæd begot Wæround, begot Offa, begot Angen[geot], begot Eomer, [begot Icel,begot Cnebba, begot Cynewald, begot Creoda], begot Pybba. Pybba had twelve sons, two of whom are better known to me than the others, namely Penda and Eobba. Aethelred was the son of Penda; Penda was the son of Pybba. Aethebald was son of Alweo, son of Eobba, [brother] of Penda, son of Pybba. Egferht son of Offa, son of Thingrith, son of Eanwulf, son of Osmond, son of Eobba, son of Pybba.
Other versions of a Mercian genealogy are found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for the year 626 (A2 Version, also known as the G version) when discussing the later reign of Penda which lists many of the same names, but has Wihtlæd as the son of Woden. David Dumville has noted that this represents a West Saxon interpretation of Mercia (the ASC was conceived of and begun in Wessex) – as such, he stresses the ‘Anglian’ tradition of this source, i.e. possibly Mercians writing about Mercians.
I’ve chosen Wærmund’s name somewhat randomly, but with the idea that he wasn’t the first of his family – and that, indeed, he is originally from one of the Wash tribes for which we have details from the Tribal Hidage. Every time I write a new series, something clicks for me, and in this case it’s that whatever the genealogies represent, it needn’t be those who ruled Mercia as a kingdom as we recognise it, but those who ruled the ‘tribe’ beforehand. Yes, they did claim descent from the god, Woden, but most of the Saxon kingdoms did.
It’s believed that the kingdom of the Hwicce was perhaps a native British one and that they came to merge with the Saxons, or rather at this time, Anglian invaders, and then fell under the sway of the wider Mercian kingdom. (The terminology is complex to get right.)
The names of the tribes come from the problematic and difficult-to-date Tribal Hidage, which survives in an eleventh-century document, but is believed to be a copy of an eighth-century document. It lists thirty-five kingdoms, which comprise ninety-five different tribal names believed to have amalgamated to form these thirty-five kingdoms, which were then further merged to form the six main Saxon kingdoms of the Heptarchy (the seventh, Northumbria, is not included in the Tribal Hidage). Feel free to go and try and make sense of the Tribal Hidage. Every non-fiction writers seems to use slightly different spellings and because some are so similar, it is incredibly confusing. Some of my tribes changed names repeatedly as I endeavoured to make them ‘fit’ the narrative and the journey my characters make. All mistakes are mine.
There are a wealth of Roman villas surviving in Gloucestershire, perhaps most famously Chedworth Roman Villa, and also many Roman mosaics, some of which are not available for public viewing as they have been covered up beneath the soil that has preserved them to ensure that continues. The tribe of the Eorlingas is associated with Arlingham, just below Gloucester, to the east of the River Severn. As far as I can tell, Frocester is the closest Roman villa ruin to have been discovered from nearby to where I wanted to base the Eorlingas, but with so many of them, it almost feels as though they might have been falling over them – there are fifty-two known Roman villas in Gloucestershire alone.
The idea of an economy dependent on iron had not really resonated with me before, but Robin Fleming’s comment that mining, metallurgy and smithing stood at the heart of the Roman economy made me reconsider this. She points out that from the late fourth century (which is traditionally deemed to be the end of Roman Britain – well, 410 is) there is a scarcity of traditional, crucial and once common everyday items – nails, evident in the lack of hobnail books and also coffins. She does, however, stress that the Romans had a successful ‘recycling’ scheme and that forging iron objects from these recycled elements may well have continued. However, pattern-wielded blades (which had largely come to dominate what we believe early Saxon/Anglian kings wielded in their battles) could not be made from recycled iron or from a single type of iron alloy, with at least four different iron alloys needed. Therefore, an age ‘without’ iron almost ensued. It is possible that these skills were lost and then needed to be rediscovered. Equally, it is possible that the evidence for such occupations as smelting have disappeared from the archaeological record in many places because of the transient nature of the process. I find the lack of nails in the archaeological record, however, very intriguing. It certainly points to something being lacking.
Languages in this era are, of course, impossible to reconstruct. It’s believed that English, Latin, British, Pictish and Irish would have been spoken. It must also be assumed that those coming to this island from Scandinavia and Germany would also have brought their languages with them. I’ve decided to use the terms Latin, Saxon, British and Brythonic in the text. (I had to make myself a chart to ensure I didn’t have people speaking to other people who didn’t share a language – it wasn’t pretty). There would potentially have been a vast number of local dialects as well, just as there are today.
The small iron-cast horse which Meddi has is based on a bronze object uncovered at Frocester. It is a fabulous piece, described in the site report as ‘crudely designed, with wide open mouth and large upstanding ears’. It is quite small, less than two inches in length, if I’ve understood the dimensions correctly, and shows the horse having reins but no stirrups. The horse was controlled by a bridle alone, and the horses were smaller, at twelve to fourteen hands, the equivalent of a hackney pony, or forty-eight to fifty-six inches tall (according to the internet). Stirrups were introduced by the Saxons.
I have struggled to find references to the religions at this time. Ronald Hutton’s Pagan Britain contains some useful passages. This somewhat leads into burial rites, which are often much of what we know of our ancestors. It does appear confusing – the magnificent ship burials at Sutton Hoo were preceded by burials beneath what is now the visitor centre (and which I think are more fascinating than the ship burials – or rather, the process of how they went from the one to the other within a generation.) Cremation and interment were somewhat haphazardly applied throughout Britain. My own distinctions between peoples are merely an attempt to highlight the differences between them. The depiction of the burial of Meddi’s daughter beneath inhabited buildings is a known phenomenon from this period, and written about by Robin Fleming in her chapter Living with Little Corpses in The Material Fall of Roman Britain 300-525CE.
For anyone affected by this storyline, or concerned by it, as someone who has experienced the loss of a child, I’m perhaps too comfortable including such story elements. To those who have also endured it, I extend my heartfelt sympathies and assure you, it does get easier. Eventually. (what follows below has been added at the end of the proofread for Lords of Iron).
This passage leads somewhat well to a thought by Meddi as she nears the end of book three.
‘I’m Meddi, seeress of the Eorlingas. It’s been a long and troubled journey to reach this moment in my life when hatred has bled away to nothing but a dull ache where the life I thought I’d have has a child has failed to come to fruition. But I would change nothing, aside from the loss of my daughter.’
I think this is perhaps the most ‘me’ I’ve included in a novel (not that I’ve spent my lifetime filled with hatred, but I hope you understand the sentiment).
Perhaps, in the end, this trilogy has been as much for me, as it has been for my readers. Thank you.
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It’s nearly happy release day to Lords of Iron, the third and concluding book in the Dark Age Chronicles Trilogy. Let’s talk about Meddi , the seeress of the Eorlingas #newrelease #MenOfIron #WarriorsOfIron #LordsofIron #histfic
Meddi, the seeress of the Eorlingas
When I was thinking about writing this trilogy, set in the undocumented and little-understood ‘true’ Dark Ages, it was Meddi’s character that came to me most forcefully. I had thought she appeared pretty fully formed, but I’ve actually found a very early attempt which doesn’t mention her (it was only about 250 words, admittedly). After that, she evidently developed quite quickly in my mind. Of the two main points of view characters, Meddi and Wærmund, she is the one who was the most different to what I’ve written before, so I was surprised by how strongly she manifested and became ‘real’ to me. I ran a few elements of her character passed a number of trusted early readers. I wanted her to be strong and determined, but also broken and healing from a terrible trauma, a terrible trauma even I can only imagine. But I also didn’t want her to be stereotypical. I needed to make her realistic and both a product of what had happened to her, and also not. Don’t worry, it was a confusing mix for me, too.
Making her a seeress allowed me to give her an influential position amongst her people. But of course, it brought some problems. What sort of seeress should she be? What magiks should she possess? And how to make those more ‘fantastical’ elements work in what was intended as a piece of archaeological fiction (yes, historical, but so much is based on archaeological finds, it seems wrong to misname it).
I am, and no doubt, will always be a ‘pantser’ (someone who doesn’t plan their stories but just writes them – perhaps in many wats somewhat similar to Meddi when she reaches out to communicate with her ‘god’ only I’m reaching out for my muse and a story that plays out on the page). As such, some elements of Meddi’s personality just appeared for me, and others had to be worked at. I was also conscious of not making her too similar to the wonderful Wynflæd in The Eagle of Mercia Chronicles, or indeed, the Wolf Lady, who also features (both of them healers). Yet, a seeress would possess the abilities to tend to the sick. It was tricky to get it just right. It was really only when I heard her words brought to life by her fabulous narrator, Antonia Breamish, that I truly appreciated that Meddi was a creation I could be very satisfied with (you can listen to her below). I believe, and I hope my readers will agree, that she’s fully rounded, entirely understandable, and if she does things we wouldn’t, then we can be sympathetic to what drives her.
The symbolic adorning of her face and hair with chalk or charcoal as she conducts her magiks was based on little more than my imagination, and yet the imagery is stark. She is sometimes cast from shadow, and sometimes from light. She is a character who loves and hates with equal fierceness, and sometimes, her love shows itself in ways that are perhaps more akin to hatred. But she is certainly most critical of herself. She is driven by ambition, and in this final book, I think we see her at her most vulnerable and also at her strongest. Enjoy.
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It’s time to go back to the beginning of the year and work out exactly how I’ve been spending my time. 2025 has been a pretty decent year in terms of writing, but I have largely missed out on writing for three months this year. Let’s find out why.
In January, I was busy working on what would become Shield of Mercia. In my notes, it’s simply called Icel 8. I started it in December 2024 and finished it in January 2025. It looks like my writing was pretty consistent for this one, and quite often, I was able to write about 4000 words a day, which makes me wonder whether I was maybe a bit behind at this point. I can’t quite remember. I’ve checked, and yes, I was running late with this one. That explains why I was so busy tapping away throughout January. I also completed the proofreading for Men of Iron and was working on some other stuff in the background, for my ‘other’ writing name. January was my most productive writing month in terms of word count gained. It was a good start to the year, but it didn’t continue.
In February, I seem to have been working on a few projects at the same time – one of my fantasy titles, as well as copyedits for Warriors of Iron, and some finessing for Shield of Mercia (I have a feeling this is the point I realised I needed some locations for Icel’s journey through Wessex and hightailed it to the uni library for some research books – somewhat amusingly the one I found was written in 1978). I also started work on what would become The Secret Sauce. It was not one of my most productive months in terms of word count achieved, but I evidently spent a lot of time editing and rewriting things. Sadly, it wasn’t my least productive month, which has ended up being December.
March was a tough month as I lost my Dad, and all writing plans, understandably, went out the window. I had structural edits to work on for Shield of Mercia, and it was very hard going. For a few weeks, I worried I wouldn’t get back into writing, but I did. It just took a while. My writing process is very creative. I pop on some music, ‘transport’ myself to where my characters are, and tap away. It can be hard to achieve when there’s too much going on in my head besides writing. I also managed a bit more work on The Secret Sauce.
April was also very messy – I pressed on with The Secret Sauce, and then after all the stress of March, completely relaxed on holiday in Orkney for two weeks. I definitely needed it.
May marks the start of the exam season at school. But, with everything going on, I was very behind with Lords of Iron (like so behind that there was barely anything there). But I trusted myself to get it done and spent the half-term holiday (9 days in total) writing. I wrote over half of the first draft for Lords of Iron in just those 9 days. It sounds crazy, but it was the final part in the trilogy, and I knew my characters. It was very much a return to my old writing style (you can listen to me talk about my writing process over on my Patreon). I enjoyed it, and I also think it helped me ensure the book (due out on 5th January 2026) flowed really well, with no let-up in tension during the second half of the novel.
I continued work on Lords of Iron throughout June (this was the first, and I hope, only time, I had to ask my editor for an extension). I was also back with The Secret Sauce and had completed copy edits for Shield of Mercia. 26th June was my most productive writing day all year. Away from The Secret Sauce for such a long time with everything that had happened, I bashed out 8989 words in one day (that doesn’t happen very often any more – my most productive day ever saw me clock in over 17000 words over an 18-hour period – crazy).
July saw me concentrating on finishing The Secret Sauce, and also starting work on Icel 9. I completed my proofreading for Shield of Mercia. I do like it when I’m editing the previous book while writing the next one. It ensures I don’t miss any huge details – for instance, when someone has been badly wounded. July was my fourth most productive month in terms of added word count. It also saw the release of Warriors of Iron, the second book in the Dark Age Chronicles.
August saw me working properly on Icel 9 (Storm of Mercia). I also started work on The Barrage Body (another mystery), completed the proofreading for The Secret Sauce (released at the end of the month), and found some time to start playing around with ideas for a new series. I also completed proofreading Lords of Iron and spent a bit of time messing with one of my fantasy titles.
September was a good month. I was working on three projects, the main one being The Barrage Body. I completed the copy edit for Lords of Iron at the start of the month, and structural edits for Storm of Mercia at the end. It was my third most productive month in terms of word count gained. Yay.
October was the month when I had to ignore the draft for The Barrage Body, which should have been complete, but wasn’t, because I’d made it so complicated, I couldn’t solve my own mystery (the curse of being a pantser rarely rears its head these days, (I don’t think it has since I wrote Lady Estrid) but this time it was a real pain). I distracted myself by working on the first book in the next series, the House of Mercia. It was a good writing month, even though I was very frustrated about The Barrage Body.
Since 2012, November has been the month I write whatever I want as part of a writing challenge. But the writing challenge as I used to follow it, is no more, and while I intended to try and do it anyway, that’s not what happened. I did manage to bash out about 20k for one project, but mostly spent the month solving The Barrage Body (which I managed, and could then release at the end of the month) and working on The House of Mercia.
For December, I was once more in school, and have since spent much of the time being unwell, so my writing count is woeful. I need to finish the first book in the House of Mercia, but I have a whole month to go, so I’m not worried. Right now, the biggest problem is not writing too much for this story. I’ve also been toying with a new mystery and trying to get back to my other new project. Hopefully, January 2026 will be as productive as January 2025, and it will be a breeze to get everything done.
So, I’ve not written a new Coelwulf in 2025, but I’m working on something related. I’ve also not written a new Earls of Mercia book, but I will try to get to it in 2026 (we’ve reached the point where events are very complicated). I also need to finish my fantasy title, which I’d hoped to have done months ago, after all, it is half written.
In terms of words written this year, it comes in at about 520k. Considering the three ‘missing’ months where I’ve hardly written anything, I’m pleased with that.
Forthcoming releases for 2026 will be Lords of Iron, Storm of Merica, the new House of Mercia in August, and the second one later in the year. I also hope to write a mystery or two, and I want to finish my November 2025 project about events after The Last King.
So, in 2025, I wrote five novels, give or take 20k or so on some of them, Shield of Mercia, Lords of Iron, Storm of Mercia, The Secret Sauce and The Barrage Body (I’m not counting the House of Mercia book, although perhaps I should, as it is over 70k). (Click the book covers for links to purchase/preorder).
As ever, a huge thank you to all my wonderful readers who allow me to spend my time with my characters. It is a privilege. That said, 2025 has been a tough year in terms of sales (as well as other life related items). Do support your favourite authors in anyway you can. It’s not nice in the publishing world right now and lots of people are worried about the future.
I’ve also been getting new covers for some of my older books throughout 2025, and some titles are now available from platforms other than Amazon. Enjoy.
If you want to follow my writing journey, join my newsletter. I update readers each month on what I’m doing, and it also gives you access to my Exclusive Subscriber page on the blog. And, you will also be able to download a copy of my title, Mercia, a compendium of all things related to the Tales of Mercia. There might be some short stories in there, too (as well as a sneak peek at my new project). And if you’d like a signed copy of one of my books, then visit my online store.
The inspiration for The Barrage Body, book 4 in The Erdington Mysteries (and why this isn’t quite the book I thought it would be) #histfic #mystery
Why did I write The Barrage Body?
I’ve not been quiet about explaining how hard I found The Barrage Body to ‘solve.’ I don’t think I’ve been restrained in explaining why either. Which brings me to the inspiration behind this latest mystery set in the 1940s.
When I finished writing The Secret Sauce, I was sure there was more ‘mystery’ to solve (if you’ve not read it yet, don’t be put off, the mystery is solved in the book, this is more a background element). I checked with a few advanced readers, and their response was reassuring, ‘We just thought you’d get to that in the next book.’ And this was absolutely my intention.
BUT, well, the huge BUT is that after I’d started writing the book, my research led me down a very different path. My intention was to base the fourth book at the Fort Dunlop/Dunlop Rubber Company factory. I found a lot of aerial photographs and a book about memories of working at the factory, and all seemed good. Only then did I discover the barrage balloons. The resource I consulted said they had been situated at Fort Dunlop, or at least one of them had (I am now not quite so sure, but it was too late). So, the original title went out the window, and the story changed quite a bit. The barrage balloons, constructed by Dunlop, although at a different factory, were just too enticing, and so the story veered away from my original intention. It veered so much that I eventually realised I had two halves of two very different stories. My mystery (and you should all know I don’t plan them – if that wasn’t already obvious enough) couldn’t be solved. GRRRR.
Fort Dunlop (a still from one of the PATHE recordings)
So frustrated was I, that I had to put an almost complete manuscript to one side for a month and write something else. I didn’t even think about the book during that month. I was very cross with myself. Eventually, I realised what had to be done (but it was not a single lightbulb moment, but rather many of them) and the mystery became solvable. So, while my inspiration was to base this mystery at another Erdington staple, the Fort Dunlop site, it was even more inspired by the barrage balloons that were flown during WW2 to act as a deterrent to enemy aircraft. Curious, you can watch a fabulous video over on the PATHE website https://cutt.ly/NtpYVUD8.
Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is summoned to the Dunlop Rubber Company by an irate Mrs Adams from the Buying Department on a cold Tuesday morning in December 1944.
No sooner have he and O’Rourke managed to uncover the cause of Mrs Adams’ telephone call to the police station, than events take a far more chilling turn than the rogue situation’s vacant advertisement first alluded. It might just be that they’re in the right place at the right time to prevent a terrible tragedy. Or are they?
As the barrage balloon threatens to break free from its winch truck in the terrible wind, Sam Mason makes a most unwelcome discovery. Who killed the man, but more importantly, how did he end up, roped to the barrage balloon? And with the WAAF denying their involvement, how was the barrage balloon even floated? What does it all mean? And when they discover the secret tyre formula from the Testing Department has also been stolen, Sam starts to fear there is even more at stake.
Join Mason and O’Rourke for the fourth book in the quirky, historical mystery series, as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.
Buy The Custard Corpses here, available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audio. Or, check out the signed editions page to get a copy directly from me. Book 3, The Secret Sauce, is available now, (as is book 2, The Automobile Assassination).
Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is summoned to the Dunlop Rubber Company by an irate Mrs Adams from the Buying Department on a cold Tuesday morning in December 1944.
No sooner have he and O’Rourke managed to uncover the cause of Mrs Adams’ telephone call to the police station, than events take a far more chilling turn than the rogue situation’s vacant advertisement first alluded. It might just be that they’re in the right place at the right time to prevent a terrible tragedy. Or are they?
As the barrage balloon threatens to break free from its winch truck in the terrible wind, Sam Mason makes a most unwelcome discovery. Who killed the man, but more importantly, how did he end up, roped to the barrage balloon? And with the WAAF denying their involvement, how was the barrage balloon even floated? What does it all mean? And when they discover the secret tyre formula from the Testing Department has also been stolen, Sam starts to fear there is even more at stake.
Join Mason and O’Rourke for the fourth book in the quirky, historical mystery series, as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.
Buy The Custard Corpses here, available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audio. Or, check out the signed editions page to get a copy directly from me. Book 3, The Secret Sauce, is available now, (as is book 2, The Automobile Assassination).
The Secret Sauce is on blog tour with Rachel’s Random Resources hosts. Check out the reviews, blog posts and Q & As below #histfic #historicalmystery
Here’s the blurb
Birmingham, England, November 1944.
Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is summoned to a suspicious death at the BB Sauce factory in Aston on a wet Monday morning in late November 1944.
Greeted by his enthusiastic sergeant, O’Rourke, Sam Mason finds himself plunged into a challenging investigation to discover how Harry Armstrong met his death in a vat containing BB Sauce – a scene that threatens to put him off BB Sauce on his bacon sandwiches for the rest of his life.
Together with Sergeant O’Rourke, Mason follows a trail of seemingly unrelated events until something becomes very clear. The death of Harry Armstrong was certainly murder, and might well be connected to the tragedy unfolding at nearby RAF Fauld. While the uncertainty of war continues, Mason and O’Rourke find themselves seeking answers from the War Office and the Admiralty, as they track down the person who murdered their victim in such an unlikely way.
Join Mason and O’Rourke for the third book in the quirky, historical mystery series, as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.
Shield of Mercia is now available. Return to the world of young Icel, and listen to me rabbiting on, again #newrelease #histfic #TheEagleofMerciaChronicles #audio
Me doing a bad job of introducing the new book
In my defence, I am frantically trying to finish another title!
I have mentioned elsewhere that my publisher are now publishing what are known as ‘trade paperbacks’ for their titles. This is the format most of my indie titles are published in, and you can find this ‘new’ size here.
Here’s the blurb
Mercia is triumphant. Her king is safe. But Wessex was never Mercia’s only enemy.
Tamworth, AD836
Following a brutally cold winter, King Wiglaf of Mercia is in the ascendancy. Even Wessex’s Archbishop of Canterbury extraordinarily ventures to Mercia to broker a religious accord. But, can the hard-won peace prevail?
Viking raiders threaten Wessex. These blood-thirsty warriors are fast, skilful and have no reticence about killing those who stand in their way. Their aim isn’t to rule but to overwhelm, slaughter and take ill-gotten wealth.
King Wiglaf is no fool. As the Vikings push to overwhelm Wessex, Mercia’s lands look insecure. King Wiglaf needs the shields of Mercia’s warriors to prevent the overwhelming advancement of their deadliest enemy yet.
To save Mercia, Icel must first prevail over the two men who mean to end his life; King Ecgberht of Wessex and his son, Æthelwulf of Kent and only then the marauding Viking army for whom boundaries have no meaning.
It’s happy release day to Shield of Mercia. Return to the world of young Icel. It’s going to get cold (and then rather hot). #newrelease #histfic #TheEagleofMerciaChornicles
This is my fourth attempt at the recording:) (Contains spoilers) (click on it to ‘pop’ it out)
Here’s the blurb
Mercia is triumphant. Her king is safe. But Wessex was never Mercia’s only enemy.
Tamworth, AD836
Following a brutally cold winter, King Wiglaf of Mercia is in the ascendancy. Even Wessex’s Archbishop of Canterbury extraordinarily ventures to Mercia to broker a religious accord. But, can the hard-won peace prevail?
Viking raiders threaten Wessex. These blood-thirsty warriors are fast, skilful and have no reticence about killing those who stand in their way. Their aim isn’t to rule but to overwhelm, slaughter and take ill-gotten wealth.
King Wiglaf is no fool. As the Vikings push to overwhelm Wessex, Mercia’s lands look insecure. King Wiglaf needs the shields of Mercia’s warriors to prevent the overwhelming advancement of their deadliest enemy yet.
To save Mercia, Icel must first prevail over the two men who mean to end his life; King Ecgberht of Wessex and his son, Æthelwulf of Kent and only then the marauding Viking army for whom boundaries have no meaning.
Letter writing in the Eleventh Century, how I recreated Lady Estrid’s connections with her vast family. #non-fiction #histfic
In trying to bring together the narrative for Lady Estrid, I faced a bit of a problem: the vast distances involved. Lady Estrid had family in England, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, many of them she may never have met in person.
Today, we might pick up the phone, or have a quick look on the internet, but in the eleventh century, how would people have communicated?
And so to letter writing. There are two surviving letters from the eleventh-century that were sent by King Cnut, Estrid’s brother, to the English, when he was absent from his newly conquered country, in AD1020 and AD1027. I give a small example below.
;Be it known therefore to all of you, that I have humbly vowed to the Almighty God himself henceforward to amend my life in all respects, and to rule the kingdoms and the people subject to me with justice and clemency, giving equitable judgments in all matters; and if, through the intemperance of my youth or negligence, I have hitherto exceeded the bounds of justice in any of my acts, I intend by God’s aid to make an entire change for the better.’ From Cnut’s letter to the English from AD1027.
These might well have been an exercise for Cnut in asserting his authority over the English, and giving his regents a little bit of extra support, but they open up the possibility of just who else was busy writing and sending letters to one another.
There’s always the assumption that unless you were a holy man, you perhaps couldn’t read or write, and in fact, in one of the books I referenced for Lady Estrid, I found a fascinating chart detailing people who are known to have been used by the ruling family of Normandy as messengers, another way that messages could be sent between people. But surely, sometimes, it was just better to write everything down, that way nothing could be lost in translation.
Without the possibility of Lady Estrid ever meeting some members of her family, using letter writing allowed me to artificially create conversations between the characters, and while it might not have been the ‘norm’ it was certainly something that happened. Indeed, three centuries earlier, there’s a great wealth of information to be found in the letters of Alcuin of York (c735-804), so it wasn’t as though it was a new thing. With Denmark’s conversion to Christianity, there would have been a ready selection of scribes just waiting to note down Lady Estrid’s frustrations and complaints, even if she didn’t pen them herself.
Here’s an example of one of Estrid’s letters I create in the book.
Dearest Mother, Lady Sigrid. Queen of Denmark.’
‘This marriage doesn’t agree with me. How could you agree to it? I trusted you more than any other to understand how difficult it would be to be forced to live amongst strangers. I relied on you to argue with my father about the necessity of the union.’
And don’t tell me I will one day be the queen of the Rus, as my father planned. Prince Ilja is not a strong man. I don’t foresee him living long. Not at all. The poor man. He has barely been able to consummate our union. I hope I will not carry his child. It will be weak and feeble, and I will not tolerate such.’
My children will be strong and powerful. One day, it is they who will be kings and queens. But these children will not be shared with Prince Ilja. I am sure of it.’
And even if he were to survive, his brothers are a treasonous coven. None of them wishes the other to succeed at their expense. I foresee only bloodshed and paranoia when Ilja’s father is dead.’
Frida is my only friend and ally, reminding me of home. I hope to return to Denmark one day. I never imagined leaving her. I miss her. The kingdom of the Rus is not the same. Not at all.’
Send me news of my father and brothers. I wish to know if my father has finally triumphed in England over King Æthelred. I should like to know that he didn’t callously send me away without so much as seeing me in person for no good reason, because he was absent, in England, as so often the case. If he fails in England again, I will never forgive him for his actions towards me.’
Your despairing daughter, Lady Estrid Sweinsdottir, from Kiev.’
What languages were being spoken in Post-Roman Britain? #newrelease #MenOfIron #WarriorsOfIron #histfic
What languages were being spoken in Post-Roman Britain?
As with everything to do with this period of the ‘Dark Ages,’ much was in flux. It’s believed that many languages were spoken by the inhabitants of the island of Britain. From the native Brythonic (also often termed British) who would have spoken a version of Welsh, to the Latin of the Christians, the Old Norse (or even older versions of Old Norse) being spoken by those emigrating to Britannia, as well as Pictish, and potentially other languages as well.
Our only written source commonly believed to be from this period, that of Gildas’ On The Ruin of Britain, was written in Latin, but then, he’s said to have been an educated Christian, raised in the ways of both Rome and Christianity. If he spoke Latin on a day to day basis, I’m unsure. I know scholars complain about his grasp of the written Latin language being somewhat convoluted, but whether that’s due to him, or the way his writings have been transmitted to us through the years, I’m unsure.
How then might these people have communicated with one another if so many different languages were being spoken? There must have been translators who could facilitate trade between the tribes. It would be amazing to discover one of these individuals in the archaeological record, but it seems unlikely.
I’ve worked hard to find names for my characters which feel authentic for the period. The Eorlingas have Brythonic names, Meddi has been shortened from Meddiwysti for fear it was impossible to pronounce, whereas Wærmund and his warriors, while having names that feel very Saxon, are, I hope, ones I’ve not used before, and according to the resource I used, are deemed as ‘early’ Saxon names. Other characters also have Latin names, and some have slightly made-up Latinised names i.e. Terricus who was named after one of my readers, who wanted to be a warrior, but became a blacksmith instead. I think he’s still one of my readers:)
I’ve also used different names for the settlements, again to reflect the mix in language. The Eorlingas, Gyrwe and other tribal names are from the Tribal Hidage a contentious (later and difficult to date) source but one believed to document the very small tribal affiliations that might have existed at this time. Uriconium/Viriconium has its Latin name, although I used a version of the name I found that’s not the most commonly used one. Corinium (Cirencester), Glevum (Gloucester) and Verulamium (St Albans) have their Roman-era names. The River Severn, has its Old Welsh name, Habren, and so, as I was writing the trilogy I was being mindful of reflecting the hodgepodge of names and languages my characters might have known and heard being spoken.
It also added to the drama to make it difficult for my characters to easily communicate with one another.
Like Lichfield and Repton, Tamworth has long been known to be a capital of the Saxon Mercian kingdom. Visitors today will find a more modern castle, which variously dates from the end of Saxon England up to the Victorian era, and one which is crammed with fascinating detail, from the herringbone wall beneath it to the beautiful Tudor windows of the great hall.
On a visit in 2021, I can also inform you that it currently had a third of the fabulous Staffordshire Hoard on display and an excellent museum filled with all things Saxon. (I believe it still holds some of the Staffordshire Hoard). Castles, if they were built in the late Saxon period, and some of them were, would have been constructed from wood. It was only later that they came to be built or rebuilt in stone, as we recognise them today.
A view of the oldest part of Tamworth Castle, dating to after the end of Saxon England
Today’s castle wouldn’t have existed in the 820s and 830s. Indeed, it’s proven to be very difficult for archaeologists to determine where the original settlement of Tamworth lay, no doubt, because much of it has been overbuilt, just as in most places where habitation has been almost continuous. A fire in 1345 might well have destroyed any remaining wooden dwellings, making the endeavour even more difficult.
Map showing the location of Tamworth, at the heart of the Saxon kingdom of Mercia. It is close to Lichfield, another important location, and to Repton where, for a period, the ruling family were buried.
It has been possible to reconstruct Tamworth in the 900s, when it was designated a ‘burh,’ a defensive settlement in which the local population could seek shelter from the Viking raiders behind its walls. (I can’t find the image at the moment).
But it is possible to imagine how Saxon Tamworth might well have looked in the 800s, when the Eagle of Mercia Chronicles takes place. The rivers, The Tame and the Anker, run in front of the current castle, and there’s a slight rise, on which I used to spend many happy hours running up and down the steps, with flowers blooming in the flower beds. From there, it would have been possible to see a reasonable distance south. The river would have been put to good use, and the remains of a water mill have been found and dated to the later Saxon period. Houses would have been built from wood, wattle and daub with thatched roofs, and there would have been workshops as well as residential dwellings. At the centre of the settlement would have been a lord’s hall. While this hasn’t been found in Tamworth, it could have measured upwards of 24 metres long by 6 metres wide. It’s believed it was also surrounded by a defensive ditch. Somewhat sheltered, as the road to Lichfield is uphill, it would have been a pleasant, and I assure you, on the right day, very warm, location for Mercian kings to have lived within. It was close to Watling Street too, allowing easy access to the rest of Mercia.
View of Tamworth castle from the bridgeThe famous Herringbone wall (I think it’s famous, anyway).The Tudor window from the outsideThe Tudor window from the insideThe wall walkwayView from the bridge crossing the riverAnother view from the bridge over the river
Thanks to some spectacular archaeological finds, we can visualise how a Saxon warrior might have looked. The reconstructions of the Sutton Hoo helm, and that found with the Staffordshire Horde (as well as a few others), present us with elaborate helmets crested with dyed-horse hair in a way very reminiscent of the Roman era. They glitter, and they seem to be festooned in gold and silver work, but whether these were actually worn in battle or not is debatable. Firstly, they would have made the kings or noblemen very noticeable to their enemy. Secondly, they were so valuable it’s impossible to consider the loss of one of them should they fall and their goods be taken by their enemy. Bad enough for their king and leader to die in battle, but to also lose such precious wealth as well seems unlikely. That said, of course, the Sutton Hoo helm was buried, and the fragments of the Staffordshire Hoard helmet were buried and lost. An image of the Staffordshire Helmet can be found here: https://www.stokemuseums.org.uk/pmag/collections/archaeology/the-staffordshire-hoard/
But there is another reason why these helmets might have existed, and that’s because they were for ceremonial purposes. Kings, before the reign of Athelstan (925-937) are not known to have undergone consecration with a crown but rather with a helmet. After all, they were warrior kings. Perhaps then, these survivals are more akin to that worn by a warrior-king when appearing before his people or for ceremonial reasons.
The cheek guard from the Staffordshire Hoard. Attribution below. Flickr user “Portable Antiquities Scheme”, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
What then might have been the more usual garb for a warrior of the Saxon era, which at nearly six hundred years is bound to offer some variations? Shield, spear, seax, sword and byrnie. We get a feel for these items and how valuable they were from wills that survive from the later Saxon era, hundreds of years after the events of Pagan Warrior. Ealdormen had horses, both saddled and unsaddled, shields, spears, swords, helmets, byrnies, seax, scabbards and spears. The will of Æthelmær, an ealdorman in the later tenth century, records that he’s granting his king, ‘four swords and eight horses, four with trappings and four without, and four helmets and four coats of mail and eight spears and eight shields,’[1] as part of his heriot, a contentious term for something that some argue was an eleventh-century development, and others argue, is merely reflecting earlier practice on the death of a man.
There would also have been thegns and king thegns, who had their own weapons, as well as the men of the fyrd, the free-men who could be called upon to perform military service each year, as and when required. It’s often assumed they would have been less well-armed, although this begs the question of whether kings and their warrior nobility were prepared to sacrifice those they relied on to provide them with food to gain more wealth. They might have found themselves with the money to pay for food but without the opportunity to do so.
There are very few representations of warriors, but the surviving strands of the Gododdin, a sixth-century lament to the fallen of Catraeth gives an idea of how these warrior men thought of one another. There is much talk of killing many enemies, drinking mead, and being mourned by those they leave behind.
Battle tactics from the period are impossible to determine fully. Before writing my books which are blood-filled and violent, I read a fascinating account, by a military historian, on how he thought the Battle of Hastings might have been won or lost. The overwhelming sense I came away from the book with was that local features, hillocks, streams, field boundaries even perhaps the path of a sheep track might well be the very thing that won or lost a battle for these opposing sides. The land that kings chose to go to war on was incredibly important,
When trying to reconstruct the battlefield for the battle of Hædfeld, which concludes Pagan Warrior, I encountered a problem that will be familiar to writers of the Saxon era. The place where the battle is believed to have taken place, on the south bank of the River Don (although this has been disputed and work continues to discover whether the other location could be the correct one), has been much changed by later developments. It was drained in the 1600s and therefore, it doesn’t look today as it would have done when the battle took place.
I had very little information to work on. The River Don, the River Idle, the River Ouse, the belief that the ground would have been marshy, and that many men fell in the battle. And the words of Bede in his Ecclesiastical History, ‘A great battle being fought in the plain that is called Heathfield.’[2] Much of the rest is my imagination.
A King in crisis, a Queen on trial, a Kingdom’s survival hangs in the balance.
Londonia, AD835 The deadly conspiracy against the children of Ealdorman Coenwulf is to be resolved. Those involved have been unmasked and arrested. But will justice prevail?
While the court convenes to determine the conspirator’s fate, King Wiglaf’s position is precarious. His wife, Queen Cynethryth, has been implicated in the plot and while Wiglaf must remain impartial, enemies of the Mercia still conspire to prevent the full truth from ever being known.
As Merica weeps from the betrayal of those close to the King, the greedy eyes of Lord Æthelwulf, King Ecgberht of Wessex’s son, pivot once more towards Mercia. He will stop at nothing to accomplish his goal of ending Mercia’s ruling bloodline.
Mercia once more stands poised to be invaded, but this time not by the Viking raiders they so fear.
Can Icel and his fellow warriors’ triumph as Mercia once more faces betrayal from within?
An action packed, thrilling historical adventure perfect for the fans of Bernard Cornwell and Matthew Harffy
Here’s the purchase link (ebook, paperback, hardback and audio)
In Betrayal of Mercia, the seventh book in the Eagle of Mercia Chronicles featuring young Icel, I’ve done something that I don’t ‘think’ anyone else has done before. I’ve staged a criminal trial, making Betrayal part court-room drama and part action-thriller (you know Icel is always going to end up in a fight at some point). However, there are odd things about Saxon England that we have no information about – one of them is how often people actually went to church once Christianised, another is exactly how the law was enacted.
This might seem like an odd thing to say. Everyone knows there are surviving law codes from the era, especially from the eleventh century, with the inspiring names of Æthelred I or Cnut II, and indeed, the earliest law code dates back to Ine, in the seventh century, from which we can glean such titles as Wealas or foreigner, but applied to the Welsh, who had different wergild payments and punishment from the Saxons. But, there has long been an argument about how much these law codes reflect practise as opposed to an ideal. And some of the elements we ‘think we know’ turn out to be on much less steady ground. And, at the heart of all this is a problem with our current perceptions of ‘right,’ ‘wrong,’ and ‘justice.’ We ‘appear’ to look at these elements of our current legal system in a way very different to the era.
When studying what records we do have, we’re greeted with some interesting terms. ‘Thereafter there would be no friendship,’ appears in a charter detailing a land dispute in the later tenth century – between Wynflæd and Leofwine (S1454 from 990 to 992). In this, despite whoever was in the wrong or the right, the decision was made which was something of a compromise – both injured parties had to make concessions. No one truly ‘won’, even though Wynflæd had many who would speak on her behalf, including the king’s mother, and the Archbishop of York, and had appealed directly to the king, Æthelred II, for assistance, only for Leofwine to refuse to attend his summons saying that royal appeals couldn’t precede a regional judgement on the matter.
In the famous case of Lady Eadgifu of Wessex (recorded in charter S1211), the mother of Kings Edmund and Eadwig (who features in the Brunanburh series), her landholdings at Cooling required the intervention of her husband, stepson, son and grandson, in a long-running debacle which was never really resolved until her grandson intervened close to the end of her life. Even though she appears to have held the ‘landboc’ – the title deed for the land – and was a highly regarded member of the royal family, this wasn’t enough to stop counterclaims. In the end, she assigned the land to the Christ Church religious community, and that way, no one actually benefitted apart from the church.
These cases both refer to land disputes, which are one of the larger areas of document survival, along with wills. But what about crimes visited against the king’s mund (both his physical person and his physical kingdom)? Here, we’re again confronted with little knowledge. We know of ealdormen being banished (under Æthelred II) and this attests to another element of the practise of law which is perhaps surprising. There does seem to have been an aversion to capital punishment (as Rabin details in his book mentioned below). And there was also a concern that the right sentence was handed to individuals – it was as bad to incorrectly punish as it was to have committed the crime.
In trying to stage a trial set in the Saxon period (which I now realise was a bit bonkers), I’ve relied heavily on a very short book, Crime and Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England by Andrew Rabin, and also his translations of the Old English Legal Writings by (Archbishop) Wulfstan (from the 1000s), from which I’ve determined how many oath-helpers people must have based on the Mercian Wergild listed within the source documents. This suggests the value placed on individuals – the king, of course, being at the top. Each individual had a wergild value and equally, each individual had a required value for the number of oath-helpers who would stand as surety for them if asked to detail what they had ‘seen and heard’ in a trial situation. The implication being that those who needed the least oath-helpers were more trustworthy than those who needed many – so a king might need no one, after all, he was the king, whereas a warrior might need a few, and a ‘normal’ person might need many.
This feels like a very different world to the one we ‘know,’ where transgressions are punished by custodial sentences and fines and where the burden of proof rests on the shoulders of those prosecuting the alleged offenders.
It has certainly been an interesting experiment, and one I hope readers will enjoy, and more importantly, one which I’ve managed to convey largely ‘correctly.’
A King in crisis, a Queen on trial, a Kingdom’s survival hangs in the balance.
Londonia, AD835 The deadly conspiracy against the children of Ealdorman Coenwulf is to be resolved. Those involved have been unmasked and arrested. But will justice prevail?
While the court convenes to determine the conspirator’s fate, King Wiglaf’s position is precarious. His wife, Queen Cynethryth, has been implicated in the plot and while Wiglaf must remain impartial, enemies of the Mercia still conspire to prevent the full truth from ever being known.
As Merica weeps from the betrayal of those close to the King, the greedy eyes of Lord Æthelwulf, King Ecgberht of Wessex’s son, pivot once more towards Mercia. He will stop at nothing to accomplish his goal of ending Mercia’s ruling bloodline.
Mercia once more stands poised to be invaded, but this time not by the Viking raiders they so fear.
Can Icel and his fellow warriors’ triumph as Mercia once more faces betrayal from within?
An action packed, thrilling historical adventure perfect for the fans of Bernard Cornwell and Matthew Harffy
Here’s the purchase link (ebook, paperback, large print, hardback and audio)
There is a scene in Betrayal of Mercia where our favourite healer, Wynflæd, speaks to young Icel about her experiences of ‘bad queens,’ referencing three women in almost living memory deemed as ‘bad’, certainly many years after their deaths, if not quite by the 830s, when the scene takes place. These women were the wife of King Offa, his daughter, Eadburh, and the daughter of King Coenwulf (796-821), Cwenthryth. Indeed, this collection of bad queens, especially the sister of Queen Cynethryth, have been cited as the reason why Wessex was so slow to adopt the term. But, was everything as it appears, or are these reputations a later tradition?
The daughter of King Offa (757-796), Eadburh was married to the king of the West Saxons, Beorhtric. In the words of the later Asser, who wrote at the end of the 890s, she’s accused of poisoning her husband to death while trying to actually poison one of his disloyal followers. Interestingly, the man who became king after Beorhtric was King Ecgberht of Wessex, who features in the Icel stories, and in turn, it was his grandson who commissioned Asser to write his life which tarnishes the reputation of Eadburh.
Cynethryth, the wife of King Offa, was a powerful woman in her own right, and the only preconquest queen known to have minted coin showing her own name. In later centuries, her name became associated with the murder of a king of the East Angles, and she was involved in a long-running land dispute with the archbishop of Canterbury.
Cwenthryth, the daughter of King Coenwulf, became associated with the murder of her brother, Cynehelm/Kenelm. The later, Anglo-Norman histories inform that.
‘At Winchcombe you will read of the secret martyrdom of Kenelm. He was the son of Cenwulf, [Coenwulf] the Mercia king, who died in the year of grace 819, having reigned for twenty-four years. The martyrdom of his son Kenelm was revealed from heaven to Pope Silvester II at Rome.’p691 Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, The History of the English People
While The Chronicle of John of Worcester extends this recording for the year, ‘[819] St Cenwulf, king of the Mercians, after a life devoted to good deeds, passed over to the eternal blessedness which is in heaven, and left his 7-year-old son St Kenelm heir of his realm. But when a few months had passed, by the treachery of his own sister Cwenthryth, whose cruel spirit had been roused by an awful lust for power, he was secretly done to death with cruel outrage by Æscberht, his most bloodthirsty tutor, in the shade of a thorn tree in a deserted wood.’ P239-241
Winchcombe Nunnery was founded by Cwenthryth’s father, and the family were therefore invested in the religious establishment, although whether enough to kill one of their own to have him venerated as a saint, does seem doubtful. The identity of St Kenelm is very much contested, although it is believed that Cynehelm did live, and died before his father, which led to Coelwulf, the first of his name, and Coenwulf’s brother, becoming King of Mercia when his brother died..
This is the scene from Betrayal, where Wynflæd shares the gory knowledge she knows, and perhaps, hints at her approval for such strong-minded women that they could become associated with such dark deeds.
‘Mercia hasn’t fared well with the women wed to their kings.’ A soft cackle. ‘Or the children born between a king and a queen. Wigmund’s merely the most current of many disappointments. Lord Coenwulf there, his father became king because his brother’s daughter killed her brother.’
‘I thought that was a lie,’ I countered.
‘That’s how King Coenwulf had it reported. It was all true though. I didn’t witness it, but I know of others who did.’
‘What, watched her kill her brother?’
‘No, witnessed the king speak of it, to a select few. And before her, Offa’s wife also had blood on her hands, as did Offa’s sister.’
I shuddered at the thought. ‘Why?’
‘A woman must live by her wits, and safeguard her future, for fear she’ll be locked up tight in a nunnery, with no means of engaging with the world at large. Think of Lady Cynehild.’ Wynflæd met my searching gaze then. ‘She remarried, and meddled where she shouldn’t have done. Admittedly, she stopped far short of murdering anyone.’
‘So, the king should have expected this then?’ I was astounded.
‘Maybe. He married her.’ Wynflæd cackled softly. ‘A man may wed a woman for her title, and lands. A woman may divorce a man. But better to have him dead, and then take his place. A grieving woman will have the sympathy of others. A widow has more freedom than a wife.’
‘You almost sound like you approve.’
‘I do not,’ she countered, but her eyes glittered.
Wynflæd is a stalwart of the series, and I was recently inspired to write a short story from her point of view regarding Mercia’s alleged ‘bad queens.’ If you’d like to read it, sign up for my newsletter and I’ll send you a link to download the story. And, you automatically receive a free short story collection as well.
A huge thank you to all the book bloggers and Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for organising. Some of these amazing people have been with Young Icel throughout the entire series, and I am so grateful they are so keen to read, they sign up for the blog tour:)
Deceit and ambition threaten to undo the most fragile alliance.
King Coelwulf of Mercia has unwillingly accepted the need to ally with the kingdom of Wessex under the command of King Alfred. But King Alfred of Wessex must still prove himself, and Coelwulf can’t remain absent from Mercia indefinitely.
Returning to London, a place holding more fascination for the West Saxons and the Viking raiders than Coelwulf and his fellow Mercians, Coelwulf sets about reinforcing the walled settlement so long abandoned by all but the most determined traders. But Coelwulf knows Jarl Guthrum has set his eyes on Canterbury, and he must protect the archbishop in Kent, nominally under the control of the West Saxon king, even if King Alfred is no warrior.
But deceit and lies run rife through the West Saxon camp and when Coelwulf believes he’s held to his oaths and alliances, an unexpected enemy might just sneak their way into Mercia. The future of Mercia remains at stake.
In The Last Deceit, I’ve included a fictional character called Ealdorman Sigehelm, who is based on a later individual that we know existed, the father of Lady Eadgifu, third wife of Edward the Elder. (By based I mean I borrowed his name and landholding).
I’ve done this because it’s fun to play around with the information I’ve learned about later in the era. It’s often one of the biggest problems in writing historical fiction. You need to know what happens before the events you’re writing about, as well as what comes after, as well as the actual events you’re depicting. And Cooling, in Kent, has an incredibly detailed history throughout the later tenth century, which we know about because of a remarkable charter. The text of which is below (it’s quite long.)
‘Eadgifu declares to the archbishop and the community of Christ Church how her estate at Cooling came [to her]. That is, that her father left her the estate and the [land]book, just as he legally acquired them and his ancestors had bequeathed to him. It happened that her father borrowed thirty pounds from Goda, and entrusted the estate to him as security for the money. And [Goda] held it for seven ‘winters’. When it came about, at around this time, that all the men of Kent were summoned to the battle at the Holme, Sighelm [Sigehelm], her father, did not want to go to the battle with any man’s account unpaid, and he repaid Goda the thirty pounds and he bequeathed the estate to his daughter Eadgifu and gave her the [land]book. After he had fallen in the battle, Goda denied the repayment of the money, and withheld the estate until six years later. Then Byrhsige Dyrincg claimed it unceasingly for so long, until the Witan of that time commanded Eadgifu that she should purge her father’s possession by [an oath equivalent to] that amount of the money. And she produced the oath in the witness of all the people at Aylesford, and there purged her father’s repayment by an oath of thirty pounds. Then she was still not able to possess the estate until her friends obtained from King Edward [the Elder] that he prohibited him [Goda] the estate, if he wanted to possess any [at all]; and so he gave it up. Then it happened in the first place that the king so strongly blamed Goda that he was deprived of all the [land] books and property, all that he owned. And the king then granted him and all his property, with [land] books and estates, to Eadgifu to dispose of as she wished. Then she said that she did not dare before God to pay him back as he had deserved of her, and she restored to him all his land except the two sulungs at Osterland, and she refused to give back the [land] books until she knew how loyally he would treat her in respect of the estates. Then, King Edward died and Æthelstan [Athelstan] succeeded to the kingdom. When Goda thought it an opportune time, he sought out King Æthelstan and begged that he would intercede on his behalf with Eadgifu, for the return of his [land] books. And the king did so. And she gave back to him all except the [land] book for Osterland. And he willingly allowed her that [land] book and humbly thanked her for the others. And, on top of that as one of twelve he swore to her an oath, on behalf of those born and [yet] unborn, that this suit was for ever settled. And this was done in the presence of King Æthelstan and his Witan at Hamsey near Lewes [Sussex]. And Eadgifu held the land with the landbooks for the days of the two kings, her sons [i.e., Edmund and Eadred]. When Eadred died and Eadgifu was deprived of all her property, then two of Goda’s sons, Leofstan and Leofric, took from Eadgifu the two afore-mentioned estates at Cooling and Osterland, and said to the young prince Eadwig who was then chosen [king] that they had more right to them than she. That then remained so until Edgar came of age and he [and] his Witan judged that they had done criminal robbery, and they adjudged and restored the property to her. Then Eadgifu, with the permission and witness of the king and all his bishops, took the [land] books and entrusted the estates to Christ Church [and] with her own hands laid them upon the altar, as the property of the community for ever, and for the repose of her soul. And she declared that Christ himself with all the heavenly host would curse for ever anyone who should ever divert or diminish this gift. In this way this property came to the Christ Church community.’ S1211[i]
To explain:
Dating to around 959, the document provides the ownership history of an estate at Cooling in Kent. Eadgifu had inherited this land from her father, who had mortgaged it for a loan of £30, which he repaid before going on the campaign on which he died. However, Goda, the man who had made the loan, claimed not to have received payment and proceeded to take practical ownership of the estate. While Eadgifu retained the landbook, or freehold record, and tried various means of asserting her ownership, it was not until Edward the Elder intervened, presumably after their marriage, that the matter was resolved to some degree. Edward seized not only the estate in question but all Goda’s lands, handing their ownership and administration over to Eadgifu. The charter indicates that Eadgifu acted magnanimously, giving almost all of these back to Goda, though her primary consideration was likely to avoid creating a powerful political enemy. Sensibly, however, she retained possessions of the landbooks to ensure Goda’s loyalty, as well as a small estate at Osterland, in addition to her hereditary holdings at Cooling. The matter was fully resolved in Æthelstan’s [Athelstan] reign when the king interceded with Eadgifu on Goda’s behalf. Eadgifu returned the landbooks, but retained the estates at Osterland and Cooling, while Goda swore an oath in Æthelstan’s presence declaring that he considered the matter to be closed … Eadwig seized his grandmother’s landholdings and, in the case of the Cooling and Osterland estates, turned them over to Goda’s sons … After Eadwig’s death in 959, Edgar restored his aging grandmother’s possessions.[ii]
It’s unusual to have so much detail about a landed estate, and so, when I took Coelwulf and his allies to Kent in The Last Deceit, I couldn’t resist embroidering this character into the tale. I imagine you can see why. To read more about Lady Eadgifu, check out The Royal Women Who Made England.
[i] Sawyer, P.H. (ed.), Anglo-Saxon charters: An annotated list and bibliography, rev. Kelly, S.E., Rushforth, R., (2022). http://www.esawyer.org.uk/ S1211
Trying to keep tabs of the chronology of my series set in Saxon England is difficult, even for me. It doesn’t help that I often work backwards, and sometimes have a tendency to skip backwards and forwards, and sometimes don’t finish things either. This might help.
Character crossovers – Ealdorman Leofwine from The Earls of Mercia series as a very young man. Lady Eadgifu from both The Tenth Century books, and The Brunanburh series in book 1.
Character crossover – Cnut, Ealdorman Leofwine, Leofric and others from The Earls of Mercia series – this book is a side-story to the main series but can be read as a standalone.
And don’t forget my non-fiction title, which is a perfect counterpart for The Tenth Century, and The Brunanburh Series, The Royal Women Who Made England
In the online resource, The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE), a database of every known name from the Saxon period, 33,981 male names are listed. There are only 1,460 female names for the 600-year period of Saxon England. Only 4 per cent of entries are women (there are also many anonymous ones which may mask more women). Twenty-one (possibly twenty-two) of these belong to the royal women of the tenth century. So, who were they?
Æthelgifu, Alfred and Ealhswith’s second daughter, the abbess of Shaftesbury.
Ælfthryth, the Countess of Flanders, their third daughter.
Ecgwynn (if that was her name), mother to King Athelstan, and his unnamed sister, given the name of Ecgwynn/Edith in later sources
Lady Ælfflæd the second wife of Edward the Elder. They had many children. Six of them were daughters, Æthelhild, Eadgifu, Eadflæd, Eadhild, Eadgyth and Ælfgifu.
Edward’s third wife, Lady Eadgifu, certainly had one daughter, Eadburh. (There is the possibility that she had two.)
Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury, whose mother Wynflæd is named, was the first wife of Edmund. Æthelflæd of Damerham was Edmund’s second wife.
Edmund’s oldest son, Eadwig, married another Lady Ælfgifu.
Edmund’s youngest son, Edgar, would marry, or have children with no fewer than three women, Æthelflæd, Wulfthryth and Elfrida/Ælfthryth. From these three unions, one daughter was born, Edith/Eadgyth.
Another Ælfgifu was the first wife of Æthelred II. His second wife was Lady Emma of Normandy. At least four daughters were born to Ælfgifu, a daughter (also called Ælfgifu), Eadgyth, Wulfhild and Ælfthryth, while Lady Emma was the mother to Gode.
You can read all about these women in my non-fiction book, and there are also some links to blog posts I’ve written, which may be of interest.
Below you can hear me try and explain the importance of the marriages of some of these women into the West Frankish dynasty. I also forget the title of my non-fiction title, and generally make a bit of a mess of it. Enjoy:)
The Family of Charles III, the king of the West Franks (in my own words)
Anne Boleyn in France by Rozsa Gaston to the blog #AnneBoleyn #AnneBoleynChronicles #HistoricalFiction #HistoricalSaga #TudorFiction #FrenchHistory #WomenInHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub
I’m welcoming The Queen’s Maid: Anne Boleyn in France by Rozsa Gaston to the blog
Here’s the blurb
The Tudor series continues! For fans of Philippa Gregory, Elizabeth Chadwick, Carol McGrath and Anne O’Brien.
A new adventure begins for Anne…
France, 1514
After an enlightening period of training as a lady’s maid at Margaret of Austria’s court, Anne Boleyn has been sent to France.
She arrives at the Palace of Tournelles, home of ageing King Louis and his new English wife, Mary Tudor, sister of King Henry VIII. As Anne speaks French, her main role is to serve as translator for Queen Mary.
Anne’s sister Mary is also at the French court, and Anne soon learns that not everyone is pleased about the union between the French king and his young queen.
The king’s cousin-in-law, Louise of Savoy, is desperate for Queen Mary not to fall pregnant, so that her son Francis will ascend the throne.
And with Louise and the English queen pulling Anne in two different directions, it will not be possible to appease everyone.
Can Anne successfully navigate the familial politics at the French royal court? Will she make her mark as one of the queen’s maids?
Or could her divided loyalties prove to be her undoing…?
THE QUEEN’S MAID is a thoroughly researched, fascinating historical novel set during the 16th century in Europe. It is the second book in the Anne Boleyn Chronicles series.
‘Wonderfully detailed and entirely enjoyable. This is a young Anne in whom I absolutely believe, and who does much to explain the woman she’d become.’ – Sarah Gristwood, author of Game of Queens
THE ANNE BOLEYN CHRONICLES SERIES: Book One: Maid of Honour Book Two: The Queen’s Maid Book Three: Queen of Diamonds
This series is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.
Meet the author
Rozsa Gaston is a historical fiction author who writes books on women who reach for what they want out of life.
She is the author of Maid of Honour: Anne Boleyn at Margaret of Austria’s Court, 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿 of the 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗨𝗖𝗘𝗥 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 for Early Historical Fiction, The Queen’s Maid: Anne Boleyn in France, Queen of Diamonds: The French Royal Court, Margaret of Austria, 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿 of the 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗨𝗖𝗘𝗥 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 for Early Historical Fiction, the four-book Anne of Brittany Series: Anne and Charles; Anne and Louis, 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿of the 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟴 𝗣𝗨𝗕𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗪𝗘𝗘𝗞𝗟𝗬 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘇𝗲; Anne and Louis: Rulers and Lovers; and Anne and Louis Forever Bound, 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿 of the 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗨𝗖𝗘𝗥 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 for Early Historical Fiction.
Other works include Sense of Touch, Marguerite and Gaston, The Least Foolish Woman in France, Paris Adieu, and Budapest Romance.
Gaston studied European history at Yale and received her master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia. She worked at Institutional Investor, WR Capital, and as a columnist for The Westchester Guardian before becoming a novelist.
She is currently working on Book Four of The Anne Boleyn Chronicles, covering Anne Boleyn’s time at the 1520 Field of Cloth of Gold. She lives in Bronxville, New York with her family.
I’m reviewing Collateral Damage by Sam Cogley #thriller #bookreview #blogtour #CollateralDamage #boldwoodbloggers @BoldwoodBooks @rararesources
I’m reviewing Collateral Damage by Sam Cogley #thriller #bookreview #blogtour
Here’s the blurb
Winter came for the pancakes. Hollowvale fed him the dead.
Dane Winter is unemployed and on a lonely road to nowhere. Riding his motorcycle west from New York, he spots a sign on the Interstate: Hollowvale, Pennsylvania. A place he hasn’t visited since his Redwind Security days. Back then, the town was known for its coal mines and the best pancakes he ever tasted.
A chance encounter with a distraught local woman pulls him into investigating her friend’s disappearance. When Jacob Rhodes’ body is found at the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft, the local authorities are quick to label it an accident. Winter isn’t convinced…
Between the death of Jacob and the unexplained illnesses spreading through the local population, it’s clear that nothing is as it seems in the town of Hollowvale. Worse still, Winter thinks it might have something to do with his time there two years earlier.
What starts as a quest for answers becomes a fight to expose a conspiracy that reaches far beyond the small town.
But Winter is never one to give up, and he’s willing to burn it all down in order to uncover the horrific truth.
This is the first book in the Dane Winter series that I’ve read, although it’s the second book in the series.
Our tale takes us to a small town, Hollowvale, in the US, with a man and his motorbike, and the next few pages feel very Reacher-esque as Dane eats in the diner and then heads out on the road once more. Only then does everything change, and Dane finds himself thrust into a mystery he wasn’t expecting.
There are small-town politics, some nasty bad-guys, a cover-up of something very dodgy, a distressed woman, all coupled with Dane’s desire to uncover the truth about a company he’s worked for in the past (2 years ago).
The story moves fast, and while it might have taken me a while to get into the new character and situation, I was soon flying through the book as the tension and the stakes built.
This is a fun, if sometimes tense tale, with its fair share of jeopardy and ‘fight’ scenes. It is sure to appeal to fans of Jack Reacher.
Meet the author
Sam Cogley is the author of popular action thrillers, melding suspense-laden espionage plots with the mesmerising world of high-tech innovations. He writes the high-octane Dane Winter thrillers for Boldwood Books.
Sam lives in Victoria, Australia with his wife and children.
It’s (nearly) happy release day to Storm of Mercia. Return to the world of young Icel in the ninth book in the Eagle of Mercia Series. #histficbook #newrelease
Listen to me talk about Storm of Mercia (and other books too because it’s hard to stay on track)
Wessex has never been Mercia’s ally, neither has it been her only enemy.
Wessex, AD836
The Viking raiders’ devastation has been halted once more by the shields of Mercia as opposed to Wessex. But their whereabouts are unknown.
King Wiglaf of Mercia is keen to ensure the Viking raiders are swept from his shared border with Wessex but these Viking ships are quick and difficult to track and Icel is once more deployed with Ealdorman Ælfstan warriors to do his King’s bidding. However, Icel’s quest is beset with many more obstacles and it’s not all about the seax and shield.
Worrying news from home overshadows Icel’s every deadly encounter. Will the storms of war keep him away or has he time to make one more desperate journey back to Tamworth?
With raging seas driving him ever further from Mercia’s shores, and the threat of a new conspiracy against the Mercian kingship will Icel overpower the sands of time, or will he be defeated by his deadliest nemesis yet?
(I’d forgotten that Audible offered referral links to authors/producers – if you click on of the links, Audible rewards me and Matt:))
Here’s the blurb
Birmingham, England, November 1944.
Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is summoned to a suspicious death at the BB Sauce factory in Aston on a wet Monday morning in late November 1944.
Greeted by his enthusiastic sergeant, O’Rourke, Sam Mason finds himself plunged into a challenging investigation to discover how Harry Armstrong met his death in a vat containing BB Sauce – a scene that threatens to put him off BB Sauce on his bacon sandwiches for the rest of his life.
Together with Sergeant O’Rourke, Mason follows a trail of seemingly unrelated events until something becomes very clear. The death of Harry Armstrong was certainly murder, and might well be connected to the tragedy unfolding at nearby RAF Fauld. While the uncertainty of war continues, Mason and O’Rourke find themselves seeking answers from the War Office and the Admiralty, as they track down the person who murdered their victim in such an unlikely way.
Join Mason and O’Rourke for the third book in the quirky, historical mystery series, as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.
There are a lot of writing guides out there – with lovely sections for detailed planning, character development, and all the other bits that go into PLANNING a story, (there are also a lot of online resources too), but I’ve yet to find one for a Pantser (the opposite of a planner), and one that will provide a physical, handwritten record of all those pesky bits writers forget, and which can be absolutely invaluable when editing or moving onto the next book in a series.
So I’ve made one. This is a true notebook, not a guide. It has spaces for all the ‘bits’ I need to note down when writing. At the end of it, you should have a lovely book bible that will help you with future projects. I think it sounds fab:) It’s not quite A4 size (as KDP doesn’t offer that size), but it is a decent size with lots of room for recording your word count, your characters’ names, the locations you use – and with a timeline as well (see the images below). I hope my fellow pantsers will find it useful. (This is a physical book, not an ebook – see below for other options).
I’ve also set this up as a digital download on my Patreon (with slightly different colours that hopefully won’t drain your ink supply). You can find it by clicking here. You can decide how many times to print each page and each section is included.
I’m reviewing Secrets Taken to Grave, a gothic mystery by Isobel Blackthorn set in Scotland #blogtour #histfic #recommended
I’m reviewing Secrets Taken to Grave, a gothic mystery by Isobel Blackthorn #blogtour #histfic
Here’s the blurb
The Scottish Highlands, 1893. Ingrid Barker arrives back at Strathbairn to attend the funeral of her old employer, Charles McCleod.
Every bone in Ingrid’s body screams for her to leave, and as she walks from the graveside, she can’t shake the suspicion that Charles was murdered. As she hurries to uncover the truth and get away from Strathbairn, another murder takes place – one that traps her in the very place she is desperate to escape from.
Running out of time and clues, can Ingrid evade the truth of that terrible night up at the abbey the last time she was here, and can she solve the mystery of Charles’ death before his ghost does away with her?
An unputdownable gothic mystery laced with dark family secrets, SECRETS TAKEN TO THE GRAVE is the second book in the Strathbrain Trilogy series of historical mystery novels by Isobel Blackthorn.
Secrets Taken to the Grave returns the reader to Straithbairn in the Scottish Highlands just before Christmas. It’s bleak. It’s cold, and Ingrid doesn’t truly wish to be there (or does she?), although her daughter is very happy.
We’re thrust back into the dysfunctional household of the McCleod’s, even though three years have gone by since Ingrid was last there. Almost immediately, Ingrid begins to become aware that all is not quite right. The author does a fabulous job of making the reader share her unease, creating a creepy atmosphere in the household, already riven with disquiet between the siblings.
A thrilling and disquieting return to Straithbairn and a fabulous follow up to the previous book in the series, What Happened At the Abbey.
Meet the author
Isobel Blackthorn is an award-winning author of immersive and inspiring fiction. She has penned over twenty-five books including a number of bestsellers.
Among her credits, Isobel’s biographical short story ‘Nothing to Declare’, which forms the first chapter of her biographical novel Emma’s Tapestry, was shortlisted for the Ada Cambridge Prose Prize 2019. One of her Canary Islands novels, A Prison in the Sun, was shortlisted in the LGBTQ category of the Readers’ Favorite Book Awards 2020 and the International Book Awards 2021. The Cabin Sessions was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award 2018 and the Ditmar Awards 2018. And The Unlikely Occultist: A biographical novel of Alice A. Bailey received an Honorable Mention in the 2021 Reader’s Favorite Book Awards.
Blackthorn is the author of the world’s only biography of Theosophist and mother of the New Age movement Alice Bailey – Alice A. Bailey: Life & Legacy. Isobel’s writing has appeared in journals and websites around the world, including Esoteric Quarterly, New Dawn Magazine, Paranoia, Mused Literary Review, Trip Fiction, Backhand Stories, Fictive Dream and On Line Opinion. Isobel was a judge for the Australasian Shadow Awards 2020 long fiction category. Her book reviews have appeared in New Dawn Magazine, Esoteric Quarterly, Shiny New Books, Sisters in Crime, Australian Women Writers, Trip Fiction and Newtown Review of Books.
Isobel’s interests are many and varied. She has a long-standing association with the Canary Islands, having lived in Lanzarote in the late 1980s. A humanitarian and campaigner for social justice, in 1999 Isobel founded the internationally acclaimed Ghana Link, uniting two high schools, one a relatively privileged state school located in the heart of England, the other a materially impoverished school in a remote part of the Upper Volta region of Ghana, West Africa. After working as a teacher, market trader and PA to a literary agent, she arrived at writing in her forties, and her stories are as diverse and intriguing as her life has been.
Isobel has performed her literary works at events in a range of settings and given workshops in creative writing.
British by birth, Isobel entered this world in Farnborough, Kent, UK. She has lived in England, Australia, Spain and the Canary Islands. She now lives and writes in Spain. She is currently at work on two novels composed in Spanish.
Today, I’m delighted to be reviewing Viking Conqueror by JC Duncan #blogtour #historicalfiction #HaraldHardrada
Here’s the blurb
Born to be king. Destined to die for glory.
1066 AD, Norway
Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, the Thunderbolt of the North, reigns supreme; undefeated on the battlefield and unchallenged at home. His banner, Land-Waster, flies triumphant everywhere he marches. Everything that was stolen from his brother, King Olaf, has been regained.
But power does not satiate. Glory does not fill the empty void in an ambitious heart. Victory is an elixir that runs dry no matter how freely it flows. No matter the height on which the triumphant stand, there, in the corner of his eye, is the glitter of another conquest.
Harald has achieved more than any man of his time, but fate is not done with him. His destiny lies on the banks of a quiet river in England’s green and pleasant land – Stamford Bridge.
To finish his great story, to forge the empire he always desired, all the last Viking conqueror must do is defeat a worthy opponent; King Harold of England, and seize his country and his crown.
His life changed nations. His death will change the world.
The thrilling conclusion in the extraordinary tale of Harald Hardrada ‘The Last Viking‘. A formidable warrior king known for his military prowess, ambition, and ruthlessness.
So here we are. This is the last book in the saga of Harald Hardrada, a man we’ve always known is destined to die at Stamford Bridge in the tumultuous events of 1066.
JC Duncan has spun us a fabulous tale of Hardrada’s life, never stinting to show us what Hardrada was before that fateful day, and this final instalment remains as triumphant as earlier books in the series, even if, Harald as king of Norway isn’t perhaps as filled with such fabulous stories of his brave daring do and his astonishing life as the earlier books. But then, he must earn his title of Hardrada – or hard ruler.
We move inexorably towards the events of Stamford Bridge with the ever loyal Eric returning to Harald’s side. It all seems so easy to accomplish close to Jorvik. So easy, and yet…it is not. Harald, at long last, finds a worthy opponent, one worthy of matching him in battle.
Not only does Harald’s story near its conclusion, but our narrator and his reasons for telling his tale are finally revealed as well.
I’ve loved this series by JC Duncan following the life of Harald Hardrada. It’s been fascinating to learn about his time away from Norway and all about that fateful day in 1066, which is recounted poignantly, and does indeed show Harald as the battle commander he was – ruthless, ambitious. Honourable (mostly). If you’ve not yet started the series, go pick up Warrior Prince now. You will not be disappointed.
JC Duncan is a well-reviewed historical fiction author, with a passion for Vikings. When he isn’t writing or doing his full-time engineering job, James is happiest being an amateur bladesmith
I’m delighted to welcome Kathleen McGurl and her new release The Vanished Girl to the blog #blogtour #newrelease #BookBlast
I’m delighted to welcome Kathleen McGurl and her new release The Vanished Girl to the blog #blogtour #newrelease #BookBlast
Here’s the blurb
The memories of that summer won’t stay buried forever…
1976. It’s a long, hot summer, and all Jo Salway wants is to bask in the freedom of the holidays with her life-long friends. But when little Pippa Jenkins suddenly vanishes without a trace, the friends must close ranks to protect themselves. And in doing so, change the course of their futures forever …
2024. Haunted by the events of fifty years ago, Jo has never returned to her childhood home of Hareton Wick. But in the aftermath of trauma and with her only respite found at the bottom of a bottle, Jo knows that the only way to start afresh is to unravel the secrets of her past. But when the tangled web of Pippa’s disappearance starts to lead closer to home, who will Jo be able to trust, and who will she betray …
I’m welcoming The Teacher’s Noble Heart by Susanne Dunlap to the blog #blogtour #RegencyRomance #bookreview
I’m welcoming The Teacher’s Noble Heart by Susanne Dunlap to the blog #blogtour #RegencyRomance #bookreview
Here’s the blurb
In Regency Cornwall, governess Miss Wilkins has always survived by being sensible, capable, and self-reliant. When she dares to take a bold step toward independence, she has no intention of complicating her life—or her heart.
Her encounters with James Pentarrant, the steadfast captain of the Delabole slate quarry, are marked less by romance than by spirited disagreement. Self-contained and disciplined, James challenges her views at every turn, even as he respects her resolve. What begins as wary sparring and mutual resistance gradually deepens into an understanding neither expected nor sought.
Alongside their unfolding story, a young heiress newly returned to Cornwall hides a calling that defies convention. When a moment of danger on the moor—and the inevitable gossip that follows—forces her into an unintended engagement, assumptions harden and emotions become dangerously entangled. Her growing affection for her own sparring partner, a gentle country doctor with the manners of a true gentleman and a secret of his own, only further unsettles what society is determined to set in place.
Set against the rugged beauty of Cornwall’s coast, quarries, and windswept moors, The Teacher’s Noble Heart is a tender Regency romance of intertwined lives, mistaken conclusions, and love discovered in spite of every sensible intention.
Purchase Link
My Review
The Teacher’s Noble Heart is the fourth of Susanne Dunlap’s Regency romances I’ve read, and I’ve enjoyed all of them (see my reviews below for the previous books). Every book offers something a little different, while still delivering on what we all expect from a Regency romance.
In this story, we are transported to Cornwall, where society is a little different to that of London and yet mostly governed by the same conventions, even if some elements are a little less refined. The addition of our working nobleman and the mystery of the new local doctor adds a delightful element to the story of our two heroines,as does our less-than-typical professions of the two women.
A charming Regency Romance, offering something a little different to stories of London and the Ton and sure to delight fans of the genre.
Susanne Dunlap started out a historian, became an award-winning historical novelist with fourteen published novels for adults and teens, and is now the author of the Regency romance series, Double-Dilemma Romance. She lives and writes in a converted textile mill in Biddeford, Maine.
I’m delighted to be sharing my review for The Old Girls’ Island Getaway by Kate Galley #blogtour #newrelease #comedy
I’m delighted to be sharing my review for The Old Girls’ Island Getaway by Kate Galley
Here’s the blurb
Two old friends. One sun-soaked adventure.
Dorothy and Gina may be separated by twenty years, but their friendship is timeless. At seventy-one and nearly ninety, life’s too short not to have a little fun – especially in Corfu.
When Dorothy is invited to visit an old friend at his villa, she insists Gina comes along. They’re looking forward to sunshine, sea breezes, and perhaps a dash of ouzo. But their plans are upended by an unexpected guest: glamorous actress Florence Quinn, who’s taken up residence in the pool house.
Florence may sparkle on the surface, but she’s hiding something – and someone – from her past. Determined to help, Dorothy and Gina embark on a quest across the island, only to find that Corfu holds more secrets, scandals, and surprises than they ever imagined.
A warm, witty, and adventurous tale of friendship, mischief, and unexpected discoveries.
We’re back with the joyful ‘Old Girls,’ Gina and Dorothy as they jet off for yet another holiday, in the company of Dorothy’s granddaughter. This time, there’s a film star in their midst, threatening to disturb what Dorothy had hoped would be a reunion with a friend at the end of his life. But there are two minor mysteries for our ‘Old Girls’ and Dorothy’s granddaughter to solve – did Rupert play a part in stealing the priceless diamond decades ago – and why is Florence so determined on finding her holiday romance from thirty years ago?
These two mysteries provide the intrigue for the story as Gina is prevailed upon to drive a car around the twisty roads of Corfu and even hops onto a scooter, all in order to aid Florence. Juliet, Dorothy’s granddaughter, provides a welcome boost of humour with her cutting, if mostly true, comments.
As with the previous two books in the series, The Old Girls’ Island Getaway is a charming read, with some funny moments thrown in to remind us all that life doesn’t stop just because the birthdays start to rack up.
Kate Galley is the author of uplifting golden years fiction, including The Second Chance Holiday Club. She lives with her family in Buckinghamshire and works part time as a mobile hairdresser
MJ Porter 
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