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The Order of the British Vampire, Book #4 in the Office of the WItchfinder General series, is released in ebook and paperback formats on July 25th, 2025! Pre-order links are now available for all good retailers.

In the British Isles, vampirism is strongly associated with the aristocracy...

Having revealed and removed the mole in the Office of the Witchfinder General, Danesh is a hero – but also a target. The Warlock sends his most fearsome lieutenant to dispose of him. Danesh must work with Lady Coldwater and Gilroy to prepare for the inevitable showdown.

He’s pretty sure he can trust the Crow, but struggles to keep his secrets from his friends. Is his mother ready for the truth? Who else can he rely on? Will Sally Spender help him? What about Arthur Stonewall?

Meanwhile, someone or something is digging up graves in Cardiff and taking bones…

Pre-order from your favourite retailer here.

Regular readers will know that I’ve been experimenting with how best to convert my books to audio. A while back I played around with AI-generated narration. I didn’t get on with it. The process is surprisingly slow and unintelligent – and I’ve since come to the view that using AIs for this is a bad thing to do. So, I’ve been experimenting with narrating my fiction myself. As a start, I’ve recorded myself reading Home World, the prequel novella for the Triple Stars trilogy.

It’s now available to download/listen to for free here.

I’d love to know what you make of it. I suppose my main question is, do you like how I read? That would be very useful to know before I dive into working on the full novels…

My high fantasy story The Destruction of Gianthome has been published in Black Cat Weekly #197. You can find out more here.

When the giants vanish, who’s left to guard ancient secrets?

Sem crossed the wheat field, then stepped across the sagging wooden plank over the brook to stand next to his mother. Across the field, the setting sun limned the towering figure of Galmar. The giant was lifting boulders and setting them carefully down to build up the brook’s course ready for the winter.

Sem talked to his mother but kept his eyes on Galmar. A difficult subject. He spoke quietly, although the giant’s ears were weak, now, and he wouldn’t hear.

“He’s been looking his age of late.” His mother set down her hoe and followed Sem’s gaze. She laughed a joyless little laugh. “We’re all getting older. Working this hard ground takes it out of you.”

Read more…

My fantasy/magic realist short story This Last Island of Beauty has been reprinted in The Growers – The Best of NewMyths Volume V.

Whether it’s a dystopia after the end of civilization, a distant world with fantastic beings, or a far future with advanced technology, it will need farmers. Thirty-six of the world’s best fantasy and science fiction authors celebrate in prose and poetry the few who feed the globe.

Find out more here.

I’ve previously published two stories about my wise barbarian, Agnar: Agnar and the Shadow Dragon  (which originally appeared in Magician’s Skull magazine) and Agnar the Thief (originally published in the Phantom Thieves & Sagacious Scoundrels anthology). In fact, both are just chapters of the same story, and I’ve been meaning to combine them for some time, and to write a final, concluding chapter. And here it is!

A quest to repair a shattered world…

For years uncounted, the people of the wilds were protected by their guardian spirit, Exinor the Shadow Dragon. Then an act of senseless violence shatters the long peace, scattering the clans and all-but destroying Exinor.

It is left to Agnar, a young warrior, to set out from the north to try to put his people’s world back together. But the world is wide and strange, and there are dangers in it that Agnar does not and cannot understand.

This novella is only available on my web site. Find out more and grab a copy here.

Once again, I’m taking part in Loren Eaton’s Advent Ghosts shared storytelling event. The premise is simple: tell a ghostly tale in exactly 100 words, in classic spooky Christmas style.

My contribution this year is called Snow Filled the Air.

Snow filled the air, a swirling wall of white that hid the hard lines of the winter woods. She’d been warned about the shortcut: there were frozen lakes you could blunder into; there were snarling wolves with red eyes. Other things, too, people said: denizens of the deep forest that waited in the frost.

She stopped at a holly bush, its berries red as drops of blood, thinking to retrace her footsteps. They were already obliterated – but there was a face looming through the shifting snowfall towards her: bestial, leering, huge, its mouth agape.

Its eyes were red, too.