I’ve been thinking a lot about winter. Not just because our part of the Malvern Hills has, until last night’s dramatic thaw, been wearing its annual pretty white coverlet. Or because Christmas is rapidly approaching. It’s more about my internal world, currently preoccupied with Roman Scotland and my work-in-progress The Loyal Centurion. This third Quintus Valerius story is set in the far north of Britannia, well beyond Hadrian’s Wall. I’m sending Quintus and Tiro fromYork, on to Vindolanda at Hadrian’s Wall, and then up to Tayside. It will be around the time of the Roman festival of Saturnalia in late December, and darker and colder than anywhere they’ve ever been before.
The audio clip at the top contains some audio notes I captured on a recent morning’s wintry walk, hoping to create some sensory background for the long journey my lads will be taking through Caledonia in AD224/225. Except they won’t have down jackets and fleece hats and gloves. Brrr!
[I had planned to research the Scottish leg of this book in December, with visits to the estimable museums in Abernethy, the McManus in Dundee, and the National Museum in Edinburgh, as well as a field walk round the Roman legionary fortress at Carpow on Tayside. Train strikes meant we’ve had to postpone this till January 2023, but I’m hopeful the trip will go ahead then. I’ll report back in my next blog.]
My December News
I’ve been creating new playlists on my Youtube channel. Partly this is house-keeping, as the original 12 videos posted there were all filmed round the West Country of England to provide more information for readers of my first book, The Governor’s Man. If you’ve read my author notes in the follow-up, The Carnelian Phoenix, you’ll know that was written during lockdown so there was no chance to film the sites in Gaul, Rome and Hispania featured in the book. I have, though, uploaded a short intro to that book, and also a new clip in my Random Roman Delights playlist: the terrific Ermine Street Guard strutting their stuff in sensational Wroxeter Roman city last August. Wroxeter — Viroconium Cornoviorum — is the setting for my short story ‘Wolves of Viroconium’, published in Roman anthology Imperium , and it was wonderful to present a copy of the anthology for Kirstie and Lucy, the site experts, and to enjoy the re-enactment, exuberant despite the extreme heat. All this Youtube tidying up was prompted by a new video link facility that readers’ app Goodreads have added to authors’ profiles. So there’s no escape — I’m all over the interweb!
My current writing: all that motorbike travel in Spain — feels so long ago! — is paying off. Alongside my work on The Loyal Centurion, there will be a new short story, Fool’s Gold, coming out in paperback and ebook in spring 2023. This story takes Tiro to the tiny tribal capital of Juliobriga in Cantabria; so far I’ve only killed off one character … More next month.
I have a busy New Year coming up. Once the fizz has been drunk, and even before the Christmas tree comes down, I’ll be joining the Book Group at Tregolls Lodge in Truro for virtual chat, coffee and Roman murder. Mid-January, my article on Roman medicine comes out in Historical Times. And later in January I’m having an author event/booksigning hosted by Malvern Book Cooperative, 7.30 pm on 24 January, at St Peter’s Church Hall, Cowleigh Bank, Malvern. My theme will be ‘Everything you thought you knew about the Romans, but maybe didn't…’ If you live anywhere near Malvern, please do come along. I’d love your support, and the bar will be open.
Finally, I’d like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas, with good company and time to relax and enjoy it. Speaking of relaxing, I’ll leave you with my latest book review. The book is the sensational new addition to the Fractured Europe series by one of my all-time favourite SF/thriller writers, the amazing Dave Hutchinson. It’s entitled Cold Water, and I suggest you curl up in front of the fire, with lots of firewood, a flask, and a large plate of Christmas snacks to hand when you read it. You won’t want to put this one down, even to raid the fridge, I promise you.
My Book Review: Cold Water, by Dave Hutchinson
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Once I’d overcome my disappointment that this new Fractured Europe thriller doesn’t feature lovely Rudi the Coureur, I fell easily into the intricate double-dealing near-future world of Cold Water.
Carey Tews, retired Coureur and citizen of the Republic of Texas, soon became a wholly satisfactory replacement. Being a woman of a certain age myself, I felt a sense of identification with this uber-competent but tiring spy. I liked her A-team too, especially Anatoly. There is plenty of running around the fractured continent on the trail of Le Carré-like false trails. The pace kept up right through. It helped that I’d read the previous four books in the series; even so the complexity and speed of the plot was challenging. But Dave Hutchinson writes with such deftness and precision, I knew I was in safe hands.
I assume and hope there will be more to come in future books of the intrusion of the pocket universes of the Community and Acadia.
An exhausting and utterly absorbing read!