I’ve always been fascinated with military history, added to which my interest in aviation after serving in Military Intelligence with the Air Force. After a career in advertising, I took to writing during lockdown. My novels uncover forgotten facts and histories, using real characters and their exploits and providing an interpretation of world war events from different perspectives, not just the victors. My recommendations bring the past to life, unpalatable as it might be, with vibrant characters, rich set-building, and beautiful period language, sentiments, and held beliefs. History and conflict, love, loss, tragedy, and forgotten memory are brought to life, full of visceral colour, but importantly always truthfully.
Scotland 1939 - Jox McNabb, a Scottish schoolboy is expelled and forced to look to his future. Inspired by the sight of a Hurricane flying overhead, he is determined to join the RAF. Can he make it through the grueling training to become a fighter pilot? Many are deemed unfit for service, tragedy strikes, and Jox questions if he’s got what it takes.
He earns his wings in time to face deadly Blitzkrieg, going on to defend his country in its hour of need. Does he have the courage and skill to survive the Battle of Britain to become one of The Few?Will he survive the crippling odds, let alone live through his most challenging air combat?
One of the books that got my writing about WW2 aviation.
Set during the Battle for France in 1939 it is the story of two very different RAF pilots, one a precise and reserved Englishman, the other an aggressive, volatile, and passionate American. Their methods and motivations for fighting the war couldn’t be more different but they develop an unlikely partnership and mutual respect during the chaos of France’s collapse and the Allies’ humiliation and defeat.
A work of dazzling action, humour, and historical accuracy, with vividly drawn wartime settings and well-developed, sometimes larger-than-life characters who are times endearing, frustrating, hugely funny, bleakly dark, and always well observed. A benchmark for me for everything that I’d want my own novels to be.
In September 1939, World War Two is declared and Europe holds its breath. When will the Third Reich strike west across France and the Low Countries? For RAF fighter pilots patrolling the Franco-German border it is a bizarre time: one moment they are chasing an elusive Luftwaffe, the next ordering champagne in Paris. Then, in May 1940, Hitler launches Blitzkrieg and the Hurricane squadrons find themselves engulfed in battle. From the cockpit of a Hurricane fighter plane to the louche salons of Parisian society, Blue Man Falling follows the fortunes of two RAF pilots, an Englishman, Kit Curtis, and an…
This beautiful wartime novel is by one of my favourite authors and tells the story of a British WW2 pilot facing the deadly attrition rate amongst bomber crews, but is also a gentle soul and poet, who becomes a husband, father, and grandfather.
It is a tale as much about navigating the peace as it is about surviving the war, a future the beleaguered protagonist never expected to have. At times very funny and wonderfully observed, it is emotionally charged, sometimes tragic, but also heartwarming and uplifting.
With a diverse cast of characters, it is like my own stories where I believe only a large cast can do justice to the scale, tragedy, and epic impact of cataclysmic WW2.
WINNER OF THE 2015 COSTA NOVEL AWARD A God in Ruins relates the life of Teddy Todd - would-be poet, heroic World War II bomber pilot, husband, father, and grandfather - as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge will be to face living in a future he never expected to have.
This gripping, often deliriously funny yet emotionally devastating book looks at war - that great fall of Man from grace - and the effect it has, not only on those who live through it, but on…
An absolute classic in the WW2 Aviation novel genre, written by the Booker-nominated Derek Robinson and a high-water mark for my own writing.
It tells the story of Hornet Squadron during the ‘Phony War’ and then the very live war in France and the Battle of Britain. With wonderful dialogue, the bleakest of black humor, vivid, gory battle, and action-filled scenes, it tells the story of the flawed heroes defending Britain in its darkest hour.
In my own writing I try to emulate the master’s characterization and humanity, his deft touch on the psychology and trauma required from individuals to keep piteously at it and the use of period language, humour, and stoicism that defined the age.
From the Phoney War of 1939 to the Battle of Britain in 1940, the pilots of Hornet Squadron learn their lessons the hard way. Hi-jinks are all very well on the ground, but once in a Hurricane's cockpit, the best killers keep their wits close. Newly promoted Commanding Officer Fanny Barton has a job on to whip the Hornets into shape before they face the Luftwaffe's seasoned pilots. And sometimes Fighter Command, with its obsolete tactics and stiff doctrines, is the real menace. As with all Robinson's novels, the raw dialogue, rich black humour and brilliantly rendered, adrenalin-packed dogfights bring…
An intriguing dual-timeline novel about a bereaved modern-day tech CEO who discovers a link with a WW2 aircraft discovered in a Norwegian glacier.
A connection with her grandfather emerges, MIA since the war, and the Mosquito frozen in time. This is a complex tale of five intertwined lives, some modern, others in wartime, revealing the disparate views held at the end of the conflict and the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi regime.
It pits modern corporate greed and the cruel science of a warped ideology against the courage and often untold contribution of Canadian airmen and their moral determination to do the right thing. Like my own work, the novel unveils forgotten aspects of the past, shows that good shines through and still leaves an imprint on us today.
"There were so many things flowing through my mind as I finished this story that I sat very still with my thoughts for the longest time contemplating what I just read. Indeed, I had to settle with the story a bit before I could even attempt to do it justice with a review. One thing is certain, "EO-N" is a novel of distinction - impeccably written, every sentence captivating." - Sheri Hoyte for Reader Views
2019 Alison Wiley, a once-idealistic biotech CEO, is processing her new reality: she's the last bud on the last branch of her family tree. On…
A moving WW2 novel set in occupied Poland and beleaguered Britain.
A dual timeline tale of love, intrigue, and the terrible choices made in war, resistance, and collaboration, during occupation. It delves into the often-forgotten contribution of Polish airmen and female ATA pilots to the Allied war effort, the precarious relationship with the invader in conquered Poland, and one of the war’s darkest secrets, the fate of the Polish officer class and the atrocity of the Katyn massacre.
This dark story is of divided loyalties, lost loves, and outcomes that depend on a twist of fate, and fragile truth subject to interpretation, divided loyalties, and clashing ideologies. Beautifully evocative of the times and wartime places, it is a story to make you think of the choices you might have made.
England, 1943 Lost in fog, pilot Vee Katchatourian is forced to make an emergency landing where she meets enigmatic RAF airman Stefan Bergel, and then can't get him out of her mind.
In occupied Poland, Ewa Hartman hosts German officers in her father's guest house, while secretly gathering intelligence for the Polish resistance. Mourning her lover, Stefan, who was captured by the Soviets at the start of the war, Ewa is shocked to see him on the street one day.
Haunted by a terrible choice he made in captivity, Stefan asks Vee and Ewa to help him expose one of…
Meet Tony Valenti. His high-flying corporate law career just cratered. His society marriage blew up in a bitter divorce. He's returned to the Chicago suburbs to lick his wounds and regroup in the haven of the Valenti family home. But time to heal isn't in the cards.
Tony's elderly father inexplicably shoots a sheriff's deputy on their front porch. Nobody knows why, and Papa isn't talking. Then their house becomes an unlikely target for condemnation and expropriation by corrupt local officials and their cronies.
With money and hope dwindling, Tony steps up to defend his father and take to city hall, and quickly finds himself in peril when he unearths sinister connections between the cases. The audacity of the plot against them fuels a gritty determination to get to the bottom of what really happened—regardless of the risks and ultimate cost to himself. To win, Tony must earn his father's trust and outwit his wily opponents.
Meet Tony Valenti. His high-flying corporate law career just cratered. His society marriage blew up in a bitter divorce. He’s returned to the Chicago suburbs to lick his wounds and regroup in the haven of the Valenti family home. But time to heal isn’t in the cards.
Tony’s elderly father inexplicably shoots a sheriff’s deputy on their front porch. Nobody knows why, and Papa isn’t talking. Then their house becomes an unlikely target for condemnation and expropriation by corrupt local officials and their cronies.
With money and hope dwindling, Tony steps up to defend…
