The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
David, congratulations on the new book. What's the plot of the new series? The new series follows the adventures of John Page, a real-life English soldier who served in Normandy during the reign of Henry V (1413-22). He misses the battle of Agincourt, but is outlawed...
Epic tales: the surprising search for identity and origins in Virgil and Dante At times of trouble and transition, communities will often find a story that brings them together. From the Iliad to the Shahnahmeh, from ʿAntar to Beowulf, epic tales take familiar ideas...
The Bratinsky Affair is Jim Loughran’s debut novel. Set in 1976, the thrilling story unfolds through a dual perspective: one is Tom O’Brien, a closeted Irish journalist from Wicklow, seeking the story to prove his ability to his higher-ups, and Irina Bratinsky, a...
Jane, It’s been a few years since the last Clara Vine novel was published. Can you tell is us about the character - and what inspired you to return to her story now in The Judgement of Stars? The original inspiration for Clara Vine came from several memoirs by women...
In WW2 Europe, escape routes for Jewish refugees were vanishing one by one. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Kaunas in Lithuania became a haven for Jewish families fleeing the brutality of the Nazis. But that safety was short-lived. As the numbers needing to flee...
Those of you who have read Blood Feud (book 1 of my Rebellion trilogy (though keep an eye out for book 2: Uprising which should be launched in early 2025)), will be aware of Agatho, Thegn Oslac’s Frankish champion-cum-bodyguard and most loyal and deadly of his...
Most historians, including this reviewer, are wary of reading historical fiction. The danger is in overlap. Did one get one’s view of life in the Georgian navy from Admiralty records, or from the pages of Patrick O’Brien? Similarly has one’s opinion of Marshal Marmont...
Rufus Varro returns for another thrilling mystery in Richard Foreman’s latest instalment to the Spies of Rome series. Assassin is the third novella and sixth story, and a welcome addition for fans of the series. But with a fast-paced plot, new readers will soon be...
Novels set during the Troubles have done well in recent years. Whether it’s the Booker Prize winning Milkman by Anna Burns or Michael Hughes’ re-interpretation of the Iliad with Country, writers have found new ways to deal with a hugely traumatic time in British and...
Richard, our favourite reluctant spy and even more reluctant poet Rufus Varro is back – and there’s been a murder. Why was Assassin a story you wanted to add to the Spies of Rome series? I partly wanted to write a novella that was in the mold of Steven Saylor's Roma...
