Buried Treasure, #2: The Broken Kingdom
Some people seem to be under the impression, infuriatingly, 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 (mostly 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. This week, I’m writing about The Broken Kingdom.
The Broken Kingdom was my second attempt at fantasy (the first being Gates of Stone, which might have been called Sink Like a Stone). TBK is a homage to Bernard Cornwell’s peerless Warlord Chronicles, an Arthurian trilogy that I don’t think has ever been or will ever be surpassed. The main difference between BC’s beloved Arthurian stories and mine – apart from the sales – is that The Broken Kingdom has actual dragons, which takes it out of the realm of historical fiction, my usual stomping ground, and firmly into high fantasy. But there are many similarities. My Arthur is also living in post-Roman Britain is trying to reunite a fractured, war-torn land that is assailed by an invasion of brutal foreigners from Northern Europe.
However, my Arthur is also the rightful King of Britain by birth and conquest and, as well as fighting an influx of Saxons, he also will have to contend with the Wormkind (a race of terrifying monsters who are the the spawn of the ravenous man-munching dragon Cythraul), which is why this series is called the Wormkind Chronicles. I have only written one full volume of the series so far, and as I mentioned before the sales were disappointing, so I am not sure if/when I am going to do any more. Tell me in the comments if you would like to see more of them; you can genuinely affect what I decide write next.
One of the reasons I think it didn’t do well is because I produced it piecemeal. Over the course of a year and a half, I put out five small novellas, one every few months, each about five chapters in length, say 20,000 words. I self-published them as I produced them, which seemed like a great idea at the time: they were only available in eBook and just 99p each and I hoped people would read them, enjoy them and then buy the next episode a few weeks/months later. And a few people did exactly that. But a lot more bought one or two episodes enjoyed them and then forgot about the story or got tired of waiting for the next one. The first one of these novellas is called Arthur’s Bane (below) and if you want to take a look at it you can get it here for just 99p. I still think is pretty good, actually. The other four episodes can easily be found on Amazon under my name.
There are five of these short episodes in total, which I pulled together into one full-length novel The Broken Kingdom in July 2024. This is the blurb from the back of the full-length novel:
The Broken Kingdom is a gripping, action-driven Arthurian historical fantasy set in a post-Roman Britain riven with strife and warfare. The petty kingdoms battle constantly with each other for supremacy and only one man, a young Dumnonian warrior, the son of Uthur the Pendragon, can hope to unite them. His name is Arthur. As well as endless warfare, the Island of Britain is suffering an influx of thousands of desperate Saxon refugees, fleeing their homelands as the world warms and the waters rise. And worst of all, an evil sorceress has awoken a great and terrible dragon from the once-frozen North, a creature known as Cythraul, whose lust for human flesh is insatiable.
So this is one of my Buried Treasures and, even if it didn’t sell in huge quantities, I still think it is a pretty good fantasy adventure yarn. Maybe you would like to check it out, and tell me what you think.
The Broken Kingdom is available as an eBook, paperback and audio book from Amazon. And be sure to let me know if you want me to write any more of them
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