I am widowed with one son and live in Bedfordshire, England.  After a varied career, I spent ten years heading up corporate communications for some of the UK’s largest snack companies. Essentially this meant my role was persuading the media, governments, consumers and health campaigners that biscuits (cookies in US) and crisps (chips in the US) could be enjoyed as part of a healthy balanced diet. After that, historical fiction was a doddle!

If you have read any of my books, you will know that I like basing them around less well known events and historical characters who have achieved amazing feats, and ideally using first-hand accounts.  I am an unashamed history buff, but much of the source material is dry or the author had a poor idea of what posterity will be interested in. To bring their achievements to life I have created an earlier generation of the Flashman family, made famous by Thomas Hughes and George Macdonald Fraser (GMF). I am a big fan of GMF’s work, much of what I know of the Victorian era I learned from Harry Flashman’s memoirs. If you have not read them already, they are strongly recommended.

The new ‘Assignment’ series, featuring war correspondent, Thomas Harrison, introduces a fresh new character for adventures a generation later, starting in 1870. His employment ensures that he is at the heart of the action, although his goal of being an impartial observer is invariably thwarted.

In both series I aim to make the books as historically accurate as possible. My fictional central character is woven into real events, so that he is fully engaged in the action, but is not allowed to alter the ultimate outcome. He is also not allowed to replace a known historical figure. But where the person is unknown, or events are unexplained, he can provide the explanation. In short, I am trying to provide real history in the form of a ripping yarn.

If you are interested in the history, I have a couple of the more engaging source documents available free, in the Download section. They are John Blackiston’s account of India and the first Mahratta war, which was essential to writing Flashman and the Cobra and Colonel Mayne’s account of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion, which was key to parts of Flashman in the Peninsula.