News and Updates from Facebook page

Another of my series is the Dark Blade one, where a young half elf girl begins a long quest to find her lost father. I based a lot of the geography initially on a game I used to play, Everquest, and this formed the inspiration for the fishing village the main character, Faerowyn, grew up in.

The catalyst for her starting her quest was the death of her mother through a wasting disease, what we would now call cancer, when Faer was 16. Here, as described in the first few pages of book 1, Dark Blade, she is watching her mother being buried at sea. She is now alone and hated by the majority of the villagers because she is different from them. She is shortly to be banished from the village by the fearful and hidebound people there. ... See MoreSee Less

The world of Kastania has many parallels to our world, and one of these are the packs of wild hunting animals called krolls which closely resemble wolves in our world. They are aggressive and predatory.

Here I have set them in the mountainous region in between the eastern part of Bragal and the neighbouring lands of Kral. ... See MoreSee Less

I came up with the overall storyline of Siren in a couple of months for the first 5 books, all in my head. I had a set number of big incidents that marked their story, and I linked them up by thinking what led up to each and what were the consequences in the aftermath. One of the big moments was Katie's collapse and near death at the end of book 2 (Sirensong).

In book 3 (Katie) I covered her rehabilitation and her quest to recover her fame during the 1990s. Here you see a scene very early on in Katie where she is still in a vegetative state at her parent's home. Her mother, a devout Christian, is caring for her. ... See MoreSee Less

At the start of the first book of my Kastania series, the empire is reeling from a series of military defeats at the hands of a warlike tribal people called the Tybar, who use mobile units of mounted archers that easily defeat the slow infantry and spears of the empire. There are fears that the empire may succumb to these raiders so Kastania has to somehow find an answer to this danger.

Here I picture a mounted patrol of Tybar raiders riding through the province of Kaprenia to the west of the existing borders of the empire at the start of Empire of Avarice. ... See MoreSee Less

One of the most interesting races in the world of Kastania are the Bragalese, a people so different from those around them that it has caused so much conflict. At the beginning of Empire of Avarice the empire is locked in a pitiless war with the Bragalese revolt, and there is no quarter given. The Bragalese are a warlike race and the women and children readily fight. Although it is a warlike culture and the men naturally dominate that aspect of Bragalese life, it is the women who actually rule the roost at home, and that is because they are promiscuous and their sexual proclivity results in many children and the women demand the men perform. If they don't, the woman can divorce the man, the ultimate insult in Bragalese culture. Everyone knows why.

Here in this scene, a Bragalese girl is undergoing what is called 'growing through', in which in the space of an hour or two, she transforms from a child into a fully aware woman with her appetite. She will awake and instantly need to couple, aggressively, multiple times. Therefore the one who tends her through this short space of her life is always male, of her age (sixteen or so) and physically prepared. ... See MoreSee Less

In Siren, Katie Long soon learned how to manipulate situations to her advantage. This is a scene early on in Sirensong, book2, where she has been caught speeding and pulled over by the cops. The year is 1985, by the way. Katie, though, quickly turns the situation to her advantage by unzipping the top of her jacket, displaying her charms a little more than she could, and she was recognised by the policeman as being a rock star. She therefore didn't get booked and in fact the policeman asked her for her autograph which she readily provided with a beaming smile. ... See MoreSee Less

The thing with writing a series of novels about a fantasy empire and its course through the years is to develop the ruling dynasty from the moment it takes power. I try to develop each character from childhood to adult life, and seek to describe how a family can sometimes unravel when in power. Here I show the four offspring of Jorqel and Sannia just before they go their separate ways. This is in book 9 Eyes of Diligence, and they are in the fort town of Adnea. Emperor Jorqel is about to leave for the capital, and he's leaving behind his son Amsel who here is 16, and he's keeping his 18 year old sister Krista with him to serve in his court. Oldest sibling Merza, stood by the fire, is 19 and she's desperate to marry the love of her life but is being kept on hold by her father. She will leave with her parents for the capital, along with 17 year old Zora, seated wearing the yellow dress. Zora is the most complex of the characters and has a wicked sense of humour as you might gather from her expression. ... See MoreSee Less

During the course of the story of Siren, they get to play in Central Park, New York, in 2002. The story of it is contained within the pages of the fourth book in the series, Siren's Return, and a lot of it covers their American tour that year. Suffice to say, this concert was one of the biggest they ever did, but I won't spoil it by telling you why they played there and what happened in the lead-up to it. You'll have to read the story yourself Here I've managed to recreate that concert in New York's Central Park. ... See MoreSee Less

One of the most interesting characters in my Kastania novels is Amal, a Bragalese girl orphaned in the first book and forced into servitude by her conquerors. She is made to serve one of the imperial dynasty and through that has a very fascinating rise though the ranks of society. Due to necessity in saving a life, she is transformed by a witch into one herself and with her new powers gains the throne of her home province. She has a difficult relationship with the Kastanian empire, having to balance reality with her passions and wishes. Here she is on the throne of Bragal in witch form. She appears consistently in all my Kastania novels. ... See MoreSee Less

Part of my research on Siren involved me picking up a guitar and learning the basics. It got to the point where a song that Paul Cepek, a good friend of mine, and myself collaborated in composing a song together and along with Gareth Beck and a now sadly departed young lady we recorded the song in a local studio here in Bristol. It gave me such an insight on how songs were created and recorded. I have here Katie in her recording studio laying down a guitar track on one of Siren's songs, Coming Back, the very same song that we recorded in Bristol. ... See MoreSee Less