Please note Priest of Crowns is the fourth book and final book in The War for the Rose Throne series. If you have not read books one, two and three, what follows is likely to contain more than a few spoilers. Consider yourself duly warned! ‘Praise be to Our Lady of Eternal Sorrows, and blessed be the Ascended Martyr.’ Those were the words on lips of the faithful: Blessed be the Ascended Martyr, and woe betide you if you thought otherwise. The word Unbeliever had become a death sentence on the streets in those days. Gangster, soldier, priest. Governor, knight, and above all, Queen’s Man. Once, Tomas Piety looked after his men, body and soul, as best he could. Then those who ran his country decided his dark talents would better serve in the corridors of power. Crushed by the power of the Queen’s Men and with the Skanian menace rising once more on the streets of Ellinburg, Tomas Piety is forced to turn to old friends, old debts and untrustworthy alliances. Meanwhile in the capital city of Dannsburg, Dieter Vogel is beginning to wonder if the horror he has unleashed in the Martyr’s Disciples might be getting out of…

Please note, Priest of Gallows is the third novel in the War of the Rose Throne series. If you haven’t read Priest of Bones and Priest of Lies then what follows will likely contain some spoilery type stuff.  Gangster, soldier, priest. Queen’s Man. Governor. Tomas Piety has everything he ever wanted. In public he’s a wealthy, highly respected businessman, happily married to a beautiful woman and Governor of his home city of Ellinburg. In private, he’s no longer a gang lord but one of the Queen’s Men, invisible and officially non-existent, working in secret to protect his country. But when the queen’s sudden death sees him summoned him back to the capital, he discovers his boss, Dieter Vogel, Provost Marshal of the Queen’s Men, is busy tightening his stranglehold on the country. Just as he once fought for his Pious Men, he must now bend all his wit and hard-won wisdom to protect his queen – but now he can’t always tell if he’s on the right side. Tomas has started to ask himself, what is the price of power? And more importantly, is it one he is willing to pay? I’ve been waiting for ages for this title to…

Everyone knows the story of Joan of Arc, a peasant girl who put Charles VII on the throne and spearheaded France’s victory over Britain before being burned by the English as a heretic and witch. But things are not always as they appear. Jeanne d’Arc was only five when three angels and saints first came to her. Shrouded by a halo of heavenly light, she believed their claim to be holy. The Archangel Michael and Saint Margaret told her she was the foretold Warrior Maid of Lorraine, fated to free France and put a king upon his throne. Saint Catherine made her promise to obey their commands and embrace her destiny; the three saints would guide her every step. Jeanne bound herself to these creatures without knowing what she’d done. As she got older, Jeanne grew to mistrust and fear the voices, and they didn’t hesitate to punish her cruelly for disobedience. She quickly learned that their cherished prophecy was more important than the girl expected to make it come true. Jeanne is only a shepherd’s daughter, not the Warrior Maid of the prophecy, but she is stubborn and rebellious, and finds ways to avoid doing – and being –…

It’s been a mostly quiet life since Robin Hood put aside his pregnant wife Marian, turned his back on his Merry Men and his former life and retreated to a monastery to repent his sins . . . although no one knows what was so heinous he would leave behind Sherwood Forest and those he loved most. But when friends from their outlaw days start dying, Father Tuck, now the Abbott of St Mary’s, suspects a curse and begs Marian to use her magic to break it. A grieving Marian must bargain for protection for her children before she sets out with a soldier who’s lost his faith, a trickster Fey lord, and a sullen Robin Hood, angry at being drawn back into the real world. It’s not long before Marian finds herself enmeshed in a maze of secrets and betrayals, tangled relationships and a vicious struggle for the Fey throne. And if she can’t find and stop the spell-caster, no protection in Sherwood Forest will be enough to save her children. Based on the continued nonsense of the last couple of weeks; putting it bluntly, the world feels a bit broken at the moment. I live in a country…

A word of warning, Lost Acre is the third book in a trilogy. If you’ve not read books one and book two then I suggest you proceed with caution. It is entirely possible that minor spoilers may lie within.  APOCALYPSE NOW? Geryon Wynter, the brilliant Elizabethan mystic, has achieved resurrection and returned to present-day Rotherweird. But after the chaos of Election Day, how can a stranger from another time wrest control? And for what fell purpose is Wynter back? His dark conspiracy reaches its climax in this unique corner of England, where the study of history is forbidden and neither friend nor foe are quite what they seem. The stakes could not be higher, for at the endgame, not only Rotherweird is under threat. The future of mankind itself hangs in the balance. Lost Acre’s predecessors, Rotherweird and Wyntertide, were an absolute delight from beginning to end, and this final book in the series is the icing on a perfect cake. This series has been such a delight, I’m going to miss it. I will reign in my heartbreak, power through the grief, and endeavour to convey some semblance of professionalism. Please note however, that what follows is written by a…

Please note, Priest of Lies is the second book in an on-going series. If you haven’t read the first book in the War for the Rose Throne, Priest of Bones, then what follows will likely contain some minor spoilers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I don’t want to have to send the Pious Men round to sort you out! People are weak, and the poorer and more oppressed they are, the weaker they become–until they can’t take it anymore. And when they rise up…may the gods help their oppressors. When Tomas Piety returned from the war, he just wanted to rebuild his empire of crime with his gang of Pious Men. But his past as a spy for the Queen’s Men drew him back in and brought him more power than he ever imagined. Now, with half of his city in ashes and the Queen’s Men at his back, the webs of political intrigue stretch out from the capital to pull Tomas in. Dannsburg is calling. In Dannsburg the nobility fight with words, not blades, but the results are every bit as bloody. In this pit of beasts, Tomas must decide once and for all whether he is truly…

Please note, Council is the second book in an ongoing series. If you have not read Kin then it is likely that what follows may contain some minor spoilers. Consider yourself duly warned. Helga Finnsdottir left her foster parents, the old Viking chieftain Unnthor Reginson and his knowing wife Hildigunnur, to see the world, but she stopped in Uppsala when she fell in love. Now she’s established herself as a local healer and herb-woman on the outskirts of town, and life is good – until King Eirik the Victorious calls a trade council and hairy northerners and southern Swedes alike descend on the town. Unfortunately for Helga, one delegation is headed by a very determined young woman who has her own agenda and will let nothing – and no one – get in her way. But the last time Helga saw Jorunn Unthorsdottir, her foster-sister was being cast out by their father for killing their brother Bjorn and trying to pin the blame on Helga. So perhaps it’s no great surprise when one of the delegates is murdered, or that Helga’s soon tagged as the lead suspect. It doesn’t take her long to clear her own name, but that only…

It’s a dangerous thing, to choose the lesser of two evils. The war is over, and army priest Tomas Piety finally heads home with Lieutenant Bloody Anne at his side. When he arrives in the Stink, Tomas finds that his empire of crime has been stolen from him while at war. With his gang of Pious Men, Tomas will do whatever it takes to reclaim his businesses. But when he finds himself dragged into a web of political intrigue once again, and is forced to work in secret for the sinister Queen’s Men, everything gets more complicated. When loyalties stretch to the breaking point and violence only leads to violence, when people have run out of food, and hope, and places to hide, do not be surprised if they have also run out of mercy. As the Pious Men fight shadowy foreign infiltrators in the backstreet taverns and gambling dens of Tomas’ old life it becomes clear; the war is not over. It is only just beginning. What with the main character of this book being a priest, I figure I should probably begin with a confession. I’ve been binge watching the first three seasons on Peaky Blinders while on…

The city of Tevanne runs on scrivings, industrialised magical inscriptions that make inanimate objects sentient; they power everything, from walls to wheels and weapons. Scrivings have brought enormous progress and enormous wealth – but only to the four merchant Houses who control them. Everyone else is a servant or a slave, or they eke out a precarious living in the hellhole known as the Commons. There’s not much in the way of work for an escaped slave like Sancia Grado, but she has an unnatural talent that makes her one of the best thieves in the city. When she’s offered a lucrative job to steal an ancient artefact from a heavily guarded warehouse, Sancia agrees, dreaming of leaving the Commons – but instead, she finds herself the target of a murderous conspiracy. Someone powerful in Tevanne wants the artefact and wants Sancia dead – and whoever it is already wields power beyond imagining. Sancia will need every ally, and every ounce of wits at her disposal, if she is to survive – because if her enemy gets the artefact and unlocks its secrets, thousands will die, and, even worse, it will allow ancient evils back into the world and turn…

On the Baltic Sea, no one can hear you scream. Tonight, twelve hundred expectant passengers have joined the booze-cruise between Sweden and Finland. The creaking old ship travels this same route, back and forth, every day of the year. But this trip is going to be different. In the middle of the night the ferry is suddenly cut off from the outside world. There is nowhere to escape. There is no way to contact the mainland. And no one knows who they can trust. Welcome aboard the Baltic Charisma. It has been quite a while since I’ve read any proper stomach-churning horror, so when I heard about Blood Cruise by Mats Strandberg I was immediately sold. Chaos, death and destruction on a booze cruise. What could be better? The premise of the novel is deliciously simple. Hundreds of people are trapped on a slightly dated, rundown cruise liner with a creature who views humanity, and more specifically warm human blood, as a tasty treat. I firmly believe the best horror exists in a vacuum; isolation always ramps up the sense of tension. Once underway, the Baltic Charisma is entirely closed off from the rest of the world. This choice of…

Please note Wyntertide is a direct sequel to Rotherweird and as this is the case it is entirely likely that this review may contain minor spoilers if you haven’t read what has come before. Don’t tell me later you weren’t warned in advance. The town of Rotherweird, made independent from the rest of England by Queen Elizabeth I, has resumed its abnormal normality after a happy ending to the travails of summer. But is it really all over? Disturbing omens multiply: a funeral delivers a cryptic warning; an ancient portrait speaks; the Herald disappears – and democracy threatens the covenant between town and countryside. An intricate plot, centuries in the making, is on the move. Everything is pointing to one objective: the resurrection of Rotherweird’s dark Elizabethan past, and to one date: the Winter Equinox. In Rotherweird, nothing and nobody are quite what they seem. I loved Andrew Caldecott’s debut from last year, Rotherweird. It is quite an experience and hugely entertaining. The sequel, Wynteride, has recently been released and good news, it is also an absolute bloomin’ corker. All my favourite characters return. Everyone, without exception, is just a little bit odd. Eccentricity is rife in Rotherweird, and rediscovering…

Everyone loves a family reunion. He can deny it all he likes, but everyone knows Viking warlord Unnthor Reginsson brought home a great chest of gold when he retired from the longboats and settled down with Hildigunnur in a remote valley. Now, in the summer of 970, adopted daughter Helga is awaiting the arrival of her unknown siblings: dark, dangerous Karl, lithe, clever Jorunn, gentle Aslak, henpecked by his shrewish wife, and the giant Bjorn, made bitter by Volund, his idiot son. And they’re coming with darkness in their hearts. The siblings gather, bad blood simmers and old feuds resurface as Unnthor’s heirs make their moves on the old man’s treasure – until one morning Helga is awakened by screams. Blood has been shed: kin has been slain. No one confesses, but all the clues point to one person – who cannot possibly be the murderer, at least in Helga’s eyes. But if she’s going to save the innocent from the axe and prevent more bloodshed, she’s got to solve the mystery – fast . . Lies. Manipulation. Murder. There’s nothing quite like family . . . Historical crime is one of my favourite sub-genres. Over the last few years…

The town of Rotherweird stands alone – there are no guidebooks, despite the fascinating and diverse architectural styles cramming the narrow streets, the avant garde science and offbeat customs. Cast adrift from the rest of England by Elizabeth I, Rotherweird’s independence is subject to one disturbing condition: nobody, but nobody, studies the town or its history. For beneath the enchanting surface lurks a secret so dark that it must never be rediscovered, still less reused. But secrets have a way of leaking out. Two inquisitive outsiders have arrived: Jonah Oblong, to teach modern history at Rotherweird School (nothing local and nothing before 1800), and the sinister billionaire Sir Veronal Slickstone, who has somehow got permission to renovate the town’s long-derelict Manor House. Slickstone and Oblong, though driven by conflicting motives, both strive to connect past and present, until they and their allies are drawn into a race against time – and each other. The consequences will be lethal and apocalyptic. Welcome to Rotherweird! The Spanish philosopher George Santayana once wrote “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” No one in Rotherweird appears to have ever heard that turn of phrase. In the dim and distant past, the town’s…