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As well as writing historical novels such as Death of a Princess, I also work as a scriptwriter for a number of True Crime and History podcasts. The latest is A Curious History of your Home, which you can listen to on BBC Sounds. I explore the different requirements and challenges of the two types �

November/December is always a stressful time for any author who’s had a book come out in the preceding year. Everywhere you look, you see books of the year lists, in which your book inevitably doesn’t feature. So it was a truly unexpected surprise to discover that Death of a Princess has been picked by not �

Whenever Beryl Bainbridge finished a novel, she would make a painting inspired by the book. It feels like it might have been a way of getting the novel fully out of her system, enabling her to move on to a new project. Although apparently, the real reason was that when she was writing she missed �

I’ve written a couple of articles about the background to my new book, Death of a Princess. The first begins: “In 1879 a group of eleven young people descended on the quiet Russian spa town of Lipetsk, over 700 miles south of St Petersburg. The ten men and one woman stood out from the geriatric �

My writing partner Moomin admiring the book we wrote together I’m delighted to announce that my new novel, Death of a Princess, is out now. The paperback will be published next week. It’s the final book in my Empire of Shadows series featuring the Russian investigating magistrate Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky. Like all my books, it’s �

After four read-throughs and four rounds of self-edits, I have finally shared my latest book with my trusted beta-reader. So now begins the nail-biting period of waiting to hear what she thinks. It’s not made any easier by the fact that my trusted beta-reader likes to read in bed. Lying next to me. (Did I �

I’ve just begun my own edit of the third book in the Empire Of Shadows series. The read-through went well, but there were a couple of structural points that jumped out at me. I need one or two extra chapters, I think, just to open up the action a bit more in places. It feels �

I’ve just typed ‘THE END� on my latest writing project, the final book in my Empire of Shadows trilogy featuring the investigating magistrate, Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky. I now have to read the book through, give it a thorough edit and then submit it to my publisher. I have to admit, I choked up a little �

I’m going to keep going with this� in the hope that it will bring my blog back to life!

I’ve been feeling guilty about neglecting my blog. It happens. Life gets in the way. There’s the small matter of a book, or two, to write. The day job kicks off. Oh, and don’t forget the social media commitments that any modern day author is more or less obliged to tend. Before long, you realise �