Buried Treasure, #1: Robin Hood and the Castle of Bones
Infuriatingly, some people seem to be under the impression that I live a life of leisured calm and idle contemplation. I wish. I’ve written 25 books since my debut with Outlaw in 2009 and I’m now putting out approximately two historical novels a year. It keeps me very busy. And since I also have to do all my own marketing and promotion, I often don’t give some of my books the PR push they deserve. This new blog is an attempt to rectify that. Each “Buried Treasure” featured in this series is one of my books that I believe did not receive the attention it truly deserved. To kick things off, I’m writing about Robin Hood and the Castle of Bones.
The Castle of Bones was my attempt to write a fairy story within the historical constraints of the Outlaw Chronicles, and as a result it is the most whimsical of my Robin Hood stories. It takes place mostly in the eerie medieval woodland, the setting for many of the fairytales I enjoyed in my childhood, and it deals with the sort of monsters and supernatural beings that the medieval mind believed to exist. There are the Grey Riders, who might or might not be elves, there are strange noises in the shadows of the forest, savage beasts and even more savage men. And callow 17-year old Alan Dale falls in love and makes a bit of a fool of himself.
I’m very fond of the storyline of Robin Hood and the Castle of Bones and, even though it is the least historical of the Outlaw Chronicles, it is based in the real history of the two Burgundies which were rival fiefs on either side of the River Saone, in what is now central France. I’m hoping people will give it another chance. It’s a rather sweet story, I think, but I did very little marketing when it came out in December 2020 and the sales were correspondingly lacklustre. Here is the blurb from the back of the book:
Spring, 1192 – Robin Hood and his band of men, travelling home from the Third Crusade, find themselves in the lush, wine-rich Duchy of Burgundy. When they are captured by a renegade knight, and taken across the River Saone to the rival County of Burgundy, they are plunged into a nightmarish world of treachery, deceit and cold-blooded murder. While the cunning Earl of Locksley plots and schemes to advance King Richard’s cause in the two Burgundies, Alan Dale, his loyal lieutenant and personal trouvère, embarks on a private quest to rescue a damsel in distress and falls foul of the monstrous guardian of the Castle of Bones.
The books is one of four novels (below) that I self-published between 2020 and 2026 after rashly killing off both my heroes Robin and Alan in The Death of Robin Hood (Little, Brown, 2016).
Robin Hood and the Castle of Bones is available now from Amazon in eBook, paperback and audio versions. I hope you enjoy it and, if you do, please leave a short review on Amazon or Goodreads, or somewhere else, to help spread the word. Thanks!
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