Out now! The Broken Kingdom – Episode One: Arthur’s Bane
I have a new project, which I’m going to be writing in a different way. It’s a fantasy series about the legendary British hero Arthur but I’m going to be writing it in short episodes, about 75 pages each (20,000 words) which I will deliver every few months. The first one “Arthur’s Bane” is out now and is available as an eBook only from Amazon. It may not be to everyone’s taste but I really hope you like it!
The reason I’m doing it this way is that I have two other series (the Fire Born series and a new Mongol adventure) to produce and I simply don’t have the time to write a whole other book – or whole trilogy, which I think the Wormkind Chronicles will be. Someone said to me the other day, casually, why don’t you write the whole series first and then publish it? He seemed to think that writing a novel was quick and easy. Brother, it is not. I’ve written about 20 of them and some have taken me several years to complete.
At the moment, a new book in the middle of a long series takes me about half a year to create. A new book, in a new series, takes me a full year – you have to work out the characters, the story arc, research the background, the history (I know this is fantasy but I want it to feel authentic to Arthur’s post-Roman Britain, so there is loads of research to do). So I’ve decided to do it this way, and get the story out in episodes. A new episode costing 99p will come out every couple of months. You have been warned!
So what is the story about? The hero is Arthur, a young warrior and the illegitimate son of Uthur the Pendragon. The kingdoms of Britain are almost permanently at war and the Saxons are invading the east of the country – this is a fairly standard set up, I know. But, on top of that, I have quite a bit of magic, a nasty villain called The Soothsayer, some terrifying dragons, other monsters, a touching love story – and loads of fighting. I think it’s going to be great. But the best thing to do is to check it out yourselves!
The Broken Kingdom – Episode One: Arthur’s Bane is out now. Episode Two will be available soon.
If you would rather read a full-length novel, my latest Viking novel, King of the North (Fire Born 4) is available here as an eBook, audio book or paperback