Air and Sea Stories

Interview with Amanda Berriman, author of ‘Home’

I am very pleased to welcome to Air and Sea Stories, Amanda Berriman, whose fantastic debut novel Home will be published next month (February 2018) by the Transworld imprint of Penguin. Home is a beautiful novel with a unique voice – that of four-(and a half!)-year-old Jesika, who, with her mother is forced to negotiate…

An Argument of Blood giveaway

Enter a giveaway for a signed copy of An Argument of Blood – the first book in the Oath and Crown series – on Goodreads William, the nineteen-year-old duke of Normandy, is enjoying the full fruits of his station. Life is a succession of hunts, feasts, and revels, with little attention paid to the welfare…

The last roundhead returns – This Deceitful Light review

The Last Roundhead, by Jemahl Evans, was one of the best historical novels I’ve read in a long time. The voice of the main character and narrator, Blandford Candy, was as authentic as it is possible to get in a work written in the 21st century. Better, he existed in a world of such effortlessly…

Nemesister – review and interview with Sophie Jonas-Hill

I am pleased to welcome to Air and Sea Stories, Sophie Jonas-Hill, whose pacy psychological thriller Nemesister was recently published by Urbane Publications. First off, a review of the book, followed by an interview with Sophie: Review – Nemesister Sophie Jonas-Hill’s novel is an incredibly atmospheric thriller that swings from eerie to brooding to intense…

“Vintener is Coming” – Fields of Glory review

When historical novelist Jemahl Evans recommended Michael Jecks’ Fields of Glory, the first in his Hundred Years War series, I knew there was a good chance I was in for a decent read. Moreover, having just launched a mediaeval novel myself (An Argument of Blood, co-written with J.A. Ironside, about the lead up to 1066),…

Duelling and dualling – co-writing ‘Oath and Crown’

When I suggested – a little casually, truth be told – to the Random Writers group in the Autumn of 2015 that I was considering writing a novel about the William the Conqueror and was hoping to find a co-writer, I should have known two things. First, that the almost immediate volunteer would be Jules…

Detectives of the occult – hanged, drawn and quarterly

I wasn’t really aware of just how enduringly popular the Occult Detective is in literature and other art forms until recently. It was through fellow writer and aficionado of weird fiction and long dogs, John Linwood Grant, that I had my initiation into the genre. John, with Sam Gafford, edits a new publication that promises…

Interview with ‘Last Roundhead’ author Jemahl Evans

Air and Sea Stories is pleased to welcome Jemahl Evans, author of the critically acclaimed The Last Roundhead (Caerus Press, 2015) and the forthcoming sequel This Deceitful Light, which is due for publication in September. Jemahl graduated with an MA in History, focussing on poetry and propaganda during the Wars of the Roses, and started…

Author S.K. Keogh – relentless pursuit, betrayal, and revenge

Air and Sea Stories is pleased to welcome S.K. Keogh, author of a series of swashbuckling but nuanced nautical adventures. I’m delighted to interview Susan on the relaunch of the first in the series, The Prodigal. Here’s how Susan describes her Jack Mallory books: A story of relentless pursuit, betrayal, and revenge: As a young…

Two new William the Conqueror novels

Today is the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings – the single battle that has perhaps done more to shape the destiny of England than any other. The fate of England, and indeed, Europe, looked very different in the evening of 14 October 1066 than it had early that morning. This seems a good…

New anthology of tales featuring strange beasts

The Random Writers’ new anthology Stalking Leviathan, a Bestiary of Tales was released last week, and speaking as one of the three editors, I think the ‘Randoms’ have surpassed themselves with invention, style and creativity. We’re conducting a Book Blast on Friday 7 October, so come and have a chat to the authors and editors…

A Study in Grey (Sherlock Holmes: The Science of Deduction Book 4) by John Linwood Grant – review

I probably approached this book in the worst possible way, in that I hadn’t read much by Arthur Conan Doyle, and even less in the way of Sherlock Holmes stories, nor had I read the first three in the Science of Deduction series. Nevertheless, when Mr. Linwood Grant offered me a copy in return for…