Historical Fiction, Historical Fantasy, from Ancient times to recent history. Thriller, Romance and Time Travel Books and soon an English Georgian Chronicle
A Last Librarian Book I'm Writing Now
I'd guess it's possible that more books have been destroyed than have ever been produced and that's more likely the case before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1436. Before that the painstaking task of creating a book by hand took much longer than it did to burn it. I've discussed this briefly in 'Where did all the books go' in my Blog.
One of the great libraries that has disappeared is that of Caliph Al-Hakam II. Reported to contain over 600,000 works, it was reported to have been one of the finest in the whole of the Islamic world.
In this new book 'The Burning of the Books', Amani and Sabine are in Córdoba in Al Andalus in 972AD where they've been asked to attend to the sick Umayyad Caliph Al-Hakam II. There they visit his amazing library, one of the largest and most comprehensive of all the libraries during the Islamic Golden Age.
Five hundred years later Amani is there again. Now it's the period of the Spanish Inquisition. The books in the library of Al-Hakam have gone and the infamous Tomás de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, is in the now crumbling library building where he presides over the trial of a man Amani has promised she'd come to rescue. The Islamic empire in Spain is soon to bow down to the superior Catholic forces of Queen Isabella of Castille and King Ferdinand of Aragon as Granada falls to them.
It's in the midst of this turmoil that Amani has to find and rescue the remains of Al-Hakam's library, uncover a Catholic spy and assassin working for Tomás de Torquemada who will do everything possible to see the library and Amani destroyed. There is intrigue, deception, persecution and romance in this fascinating story based on true events in the history of Spain as it reaches an unexpecxted conclusion.
See the first five books in The Last Librarian Series HERE
The Adam Blake Chronicles Book 1
Adam Blake & the Spymaster
A delightfully disgraceful romantic and often dangerous romp through the 18th century Georgian Age of Enlightenment by Adam Blake, the illegitimate son of Sir Francis Dashwood, Master of the Hellfire Club of the Monks of Medmenham Priory and Annie Blake an orphan from the Foundlings Hospital in London.
Follow Adam from his birth at Medmenham Priory in 1753, his upbringing by Sir Francis, Annie and the Monks and their Ladies of the Hellfire Club. Trained by a Master swordsman and tutored by a brilliant academic, he eventually rises to become the First Baron Moorfield early in the 19th Century, or as he was more often called the Mad Baron, or the Baron of Bedlam.
But it’s a long journey from the middle of the eighteenth century to the end of the Regency Period in the nineteenth century and there are many adventures, disasters and of course romantic encounters on the way. With an innate ability for getting into trouble, usually because of his eye for a pretty woman, he becomes a spy for England, the confidant of a King and the lover of too many women to mention. Dragged, sometimes willingly, by King George’s spymaster Viscount Barrington into Royal intrigue, politics, wars and conflict where he must use his intellect, wit, sexuality and on some occasions the raw ability to run in order to stay alive.
This is the first part of the substantial Chronicles he left behind and were discovered by his descendents in the 1920’s.
Almost Finished - Not Yet Published
The unusual discovery of the body of a woman in German uniform, together with a pouch of unusual items, are found by Edward Strange a British military Padre in a ruined village in Germany towards the end of World War Two. They spark a post war search by Edward and his doctor friend Harry Spalding for an answer to her mystery. They discover she was a Russian aristocrat connected with a Russian soldier turned cold war spy whose appearance was altered by a plastic surgeon at the request of the British Secret Service.
Their research is discovered by Edwards son, Ethan Strange, after his father’s death. When Ethan tries to contact Harry Spalding his father’s now estranged friend, who is also the plastic surgeon, Ethan sees him abducted from his home and taken away in what turn out to be vehicles registered to the Israeli Embassy.
Ethan works at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office where he gains the help of Stephen Gardener the assistant to the Foreign Secretary. He meets the mercurial daughter of Harry Spalding who is then abducted by a mysterious Russian covert unit.
He is teamed up with an Israeli Mossad Captain and they are given the mission of unravelling the mystery started by his father. With the help of the West German police and joined unofficially by the son of an infamous wartime German SS officer they enter East Germany where they, the Russians and a Chinese Triad, converge on a wartime mystery at the remains of Hermann Goerings hunting lodge; Carinhall.
Populated by fascinating characters at a time when Germany was still divided, atomic weapons were aimed across the world, and there were spies around every corner. Add a disfigured wild card called 'The Ghost' and this fast paced mystery thriller becomes a thrilling page turner.
