Season of mists and good books

Guest blog by author Alistair Forrest. Plus rapid reviews of my recent reads.

October’s been a quiet month at Rogers Towers.

I went to be vaccinated for flu and covid, resolutely ignoring a scratchy throat. Apart from a sore arm, I felt fine after. Then I was poleaxed by the dreadful coughing + headache + fatigue virus my husband has been battling ever since our trip to Ireland. Not sure whether the simultaneous jabs made any difference — probably not. Let’s just say it’s a persistent anti-social bug that delights in waking me in the wee hours to cough, and presents me every morning with a splitting head about to drop off.

Apart from feeling sorry for myself, I’ve been occupied in submitting The Bath Curse to publishers here in the UK. Then mulling over more research for the new book, including Caesar’s Druids, courtesy of the Roman Library at the Institute of Classical Studies. AKA my besties.

I hope to have publishing news for Bath later this year. Meanwhile, if you’re new to my Substack, or would like to browse books 1, 2 and 3 in my Quintus Valerius Roman mystery series, just click on Books in the header bar, or go to Amazon.

Enough of my fun life. What have I got for you this month? There’s a quick blast through some great books I’ve been reading, between coughing fits. And news of early-booked 2025 author events.

But first off, as part of my autumn guest blogs series, I have an article by the riveting Alistair Forrest: fellow Roman fiction writer, journalist, and VIP resident (with his amazingly talented artist and author wife Lynda Adlington), of the microscopic island of Alderney. Where he pretty much runs the show. A busy chappie, but mercifully he’s found time to write a brand-new historical series, wherein Celts, Gauls and Romans jostle for supremacy.

But I’ll let him tell you the story.

Alistair with the gorgeous Lucca

Ancient wheelbarrows and spilled gin

Thank you Jacquie, for your kind invitation to guest on your amazing blog! I have always been in awe of your passion for research into Roman Britain and your remarkable storylines. I can’t match your productivity and the only thing I take issue with is your opinion that the Romans didn’t have wheelbarrows! Of course they did, you just haven’t found a 2000-year-old wheelbarrow yet, but you will…

So I’d like to take this opportunity to (hopefully) inspire any would-be writers among your followers with a few words about how I got started.

I wrote a book when I was six. It was called A Little Boy on a Ship by A. J. Forrest except the ‘J’ was the wrong way around, as you might expect from a six-year-old. Favourite line, even six decades later: ‘The captain spilled his gin’, a nod to my father, a Royal Navy officer. And yes, it took me a few attempts to spell ‘spilled’ correctly. It was published, in the sense that I made cardboard covers and passed it around the navy types who frequented our home in Qatar, where we lived at the time.

That success sparked a later career in journalism with three newspapers in the 70s and 80s, then group editor of a number of magazines – words, words and more words; loft boxes stacked with cuttings and stunning glossies.

My first novel to be published was Libertas, written when we lived in Spain on the site of Julius Caesar’s last battle (Munda 45BC) which I proudly promoted with an article headlined, Julius Caesar marched through my garden. The publisher went bust within six months and years later the book has now been republished by Sapere Books.

In the last few months, Sapere have published two more – Sea of Flames and Vipers of Rome – and a fourth, Line in the Sand is available for pre-order and goes live on November 1. There will be more next year, which will see the start of a new series called The Britannia Conspiracy. We’ve got Celts, Gauls and Romans jostling for power and two ‘invasions’ of Britain by Julius Caesar, with unexpected consequences around every turn.

As it happens, that story opens on the small island of Alderney where there’s a priestess cult and a tradition of interring Gaul’s fallen warrior-heroes. I live on the island where, six years ago, the local electricity company was digging a trench next to the road that leads from my local beach across the middle of the island towards the Victorian forts on the north coast. They found stuff they really weren’t expecting.

The guys with the shovels were smart enough to alert our local museums and the archaeologists who work with them.

These historians already suspected an Iron Age settlement in the area and possibly a later Roman presence in the shadow of the 4th century fort that still stands a couple of hundred yards from my home, but until the electricity company conveniently hit the stonework they weren’t sure exactly where to explore.

A series of archaeological digs later revealed several large buildings and an Iron Age burial site. We brought up the first bodies five years ago, complete with neck-torcs and bracelets, before the pandemic struck and we had to call it off while the world got its mojo back.

A full team of eager archaeologists is back on the island every year, yours truly down and dirty with them in the hope of finding some evidence to justify my story that begins with Caesar’s (fictional) conference there in 56BC, to plot his forthcoming adventures in Britain. Enter a Gaul destined to rule Hampshire and Wiltshire, his sidekick druid and, of course, a beautiful priestess who falls foul of the visiting Roman oiks.

You never know, one of them might invent the wheelbarrow…

Alistair is a journalist and editor as well as a novelist. A busy man, he also looks after media relations for the island government of Alderney and is a volunteer for the Alderney Literary Trust which runs an annual Literary Festival featuring today’s finest historical writers. Find him at https://linktr.ee/alistairforrest

Books I’ve Been Reading

Moving on in dignified silence (when will Alistair ever let me forget the misplaced wheelbarrow in The Governor’s Man?), here’s a quick gallop through books I’ve read and enjoyed recently.

You Are Here by David Nicholls

In the unlikely event you haven’t read this yet, let me tell you David Nicholls has hit the heights of his previous bestseller, One Day, in this tender study of slow-kindled love, set during a long-distance walk across the north of England. Irresistible.

The Husbands by Holly Damazio

This debut romantic comedy-cum-SFF by gamemaker Holly Damazio really hit the funny bone spot for me. 203 husbands on tap in the attic — love the concept! The ending is perhaps not quite perfect, but then which of us is?

The Fugitive’s Sword by Eleanor Swift-hook

Having dipped into Swift-Hook’s fab 17th century series about principled swashbuckler Philip Lord, I was delighted to be an early reader of this first in her new prequel series, Lord’s Learning. A terrific opening to a great new series. You can read my full review here.

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

This is a potential book-of-the-year for me. I never miss a new Matt Haig. As ever, it’s a captivating novel that twists reality and fantasy into new, wise shapes. I loved the female MC — a woman of a certain age, like moi. How can I not applaud an author who writes: “All reading…is telepathy and all reading is time travel”? That gives you a flavour. Don’t miss this one.

Precipice by Robert Harris

I am an all-time Harris groupie, and rushed to put this new book on pre-order from the second it was announced. Don’t be fooled by the dry-sounding premise: the life and times of PM Herbert Asquith, in the run-up to WW1. Harris’s trick of introducing just one fictional character into history has really blown the ship out of the water in this “riveting tale of politics, war and erotic obsession.” (Sunday Times review).

The Private Life of Charles I by Mark Turnbull

I was lucky enough to hear the author talk about this new non-fiction history a few weeks ago. Charles I was a determined man of principle but not enough strength, who had the great misfortune to come up against Oliver Cromwell. Tears were shed by the end! But I learned so much about the complexities of the English Civil War. A gripping read.

My News

The rest of autumn and winter will be devoted to planning/writing time for Quintus Valerius #5, The Irish Slave. Meanwhile, events booked include:

• November If you’re a member of the Crime Readers’ Association, look out for my article ‘The Scene of the Crime’, in November’s News. If you aren’t already a member, you can join for free here.

• 2 April, 2025 I’m looking forward to visiting the Evesham U3A group, to talk about researching and writing my books.

• 16 April I’ll be with The Network, a subversive gathering of ex-WI members in deepest Herefordshire, to talk about my research and how I write my books.

• 20 November I’m back by Skype with the deeply committed readers of Tregoll’s Lodge, in Cornwall. One of these days I’ll make it there in person!

• And finally, a bit of a teaser. I’m one of a group of historical fiction authors who are putting together a specially-written collection of short stories. The central theme is a gold ring being passed down through the generations, spanning the centuries from the Roman Republic right up to today. The proceeds of the book will all go to a literacy charity, and I can tell you there are some corking stories already in the hands of our ruthless editor, Fiona Forsyth. More to come on this exciting project…

Jacquie’s latest Roman Britain mystery, The Loyal Centurion, is out in ebook and paperback now. You can find her on social media, watch her research videos, and read her magazine articles at her Linktree.