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Cover image for Under the Nazi Heel

It’s a tough time to get through, but we have gotten through tough times before. And a sense of humour never hurts. So in the spirit of the day, here’s an excerpt from Under the Nazi Heel, Book 2 of the Eastern Front Trilogy. In this, Maurice shows how his sense of humour was irrepressible. […]

Enjoy an author's reading during isolation

The covid-19 pandemic is changing everything. Staying indoors, staying two metres from other people, cancelling events … on one hand, I don’t really mind more opportunity to sit in front of my computer. On the other hand, I am missing some friends and colleagues. And I understand how boring it can be to hear only […]

Six-sentence Sunday: Philip and the dragon

From Part 3 of The Bones of the Earth As I mentioned in a few earlier posts, I am reposting samples from my original blog (way back on Blogger), with six-sentence samples posted on Sundays. These come from my first-published novel, The Bones of the Earth. The dragon opened its mouth, revealing terrible, long, pointy […]

A Hallowe'en treat: The Witch Queen's Son

For your chilling pleasure, here is another little excerpt from one of my works-in-progress, Dark Clouds. This is a little bit forward from the story you can get for free, Chapter 1: The Mandrake Ruse. It again features Helen, the Witch Queen, and her son, Matt, the only many immune to witchcraft. Helen’s prison Shadows […]

Frightful Friday: The Vampire machine

This #spooktober, I’m re-publishing some light, Hallowe’en-related stories. This one first appeared on another blog some years ago, and I present it again here for your spooky pleasure. Let me know in the Comments whether you liked it. The power went out with drawn-out squeaks from every electronic device in the house. Rodney noticed the […]

Six-sentence Sunday: The Bones of the Earth

Once upon a time, when blogging was still young and the World Wide Web was comparatively innocent, there was a thing called Six Sentence Sunday. During this epoch, authors would publish six-sentence samples of their books, either published or works-in-progress, onto their blogs on Sunday morning, along with a link to a central site called […]

Walking Out of War cover

  Today, June 22, is the anniversary of the launch of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, and of Operation Bagration in 1944.  The first was Hitler’s Germany’s invasion of the USSR, the largest land invasion in history. Three years later, Stalin’s Soviet Union answered that with Operation Bagration, a massive assault on the German Army Group […]

Kupailo girl solstice

Today is Midsummer’s, the Summer Solstice, long regarded as a special day by humanity.  This year, the full moon was just a few nights ago—also an auspicious time for mystics and sky-watchers.  The Bones of the Earth, my first published novel, begins at midnight on the Summer Solstice, under a full moon. That coincidence does […]