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Blood Point Creative writing

Blood Point is in print from today

The print edition of Blood Point is now available in paperback and hardback for all you print-loving horror readers. Blood Point: An Irish Escape becomes a Midsummer Night’s terror A haunting tale of grief, love and the monstrous cost of second chances, Blood Point is the second of my Nightmare Vacations stories. With a heart-stopping […]

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Blood Point Horror

The cone and the gibbet: Blood Point’s cover story

Blood Point is on the way to the printers, so it’s time to reveal how that dramatic cover emerged from my story of an Irish Nightmare Vacation. And what’s going on with that pine cone? Spoiler alert: gibbets and pine cones? Hmmm… You’ll have to read the full story to find out, but there are […]

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Blood Point

Blood Point: pre-orders are open

Blood Point pre-orders are now open as the countdown begins to my second novel’s live date: Midsummer 2025. (FYI that’s June 23rd) Blood Point is a supernatural horror novel of Irish folklore, vengeful banshees, ancient curses and a father’s fight against a deadly legend. An Irish escape becomes a Midsummer Night’s terror in my second […]

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Blood Point

Blood Point: coming this summer

Blood Point will be published in Midsummer 2025, a fitting date for a story set at the ancient Irish festival of Litha. I’d really hoped to release the second Nightmare Vacations novel in time for Midsummer 2024. That was a wildly over-ambitious underestimate of the time it would take to reach the end of the […]

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Blood Point Folklore

Lughnasadh: the first harvest

August 1st marked the festival of Lughnasadh (loo-nasser if your mouth mangles those Irish phonemes). It’s the beginning of harvest season and a key date in Blood Point, my Irish Nightmare Vacations novel. Named after the pagan god Lugh, it’s another of those Irish festivals that sits between a solstice and an equinox. The big […]

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Folklore

Light a fire for Litha

June 23 marks Litha, the ancient midsummer’s eve celebration and the night when horror rises in my new novel, Blood Point. The quiet Irish village of Kinnity hides a dark history, from the brutal killing of a young woman in ancient Ireland to the mad 19th-century landlord building a pyramid tomb. When widower Josh and […]

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Blood Point Creative writing Folklore Horror

Wanted: beta readers for Blood Point

Would you like to test drive the final drafts of Blood Point, my next Nightmare Vacations horror story? If so, register below to become a Beta Reader. Beta Readers are one of the last stops on the road from a story idea to a published novel. They’re a final chance to revise a book and […]

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Blood Point Folklore Horror Nightmare Vacations

Happy Bealtaine! Summer is here?

The weather might not agree yet*, but Lá Bealtaine is the beginning of summer in Ireland’s ancient Celtic calendar. It’s also the beginning of the countdown to launching a new horror story, Blood Point. Sign up to my newsletter for exclusive previews. Sandwiched between the spring equinox and summer solstice, Bealtaine, or “bright fire”, is […]

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AI Creative writing writing tools

Phew! Google’s Gemini AI still can’t write a synopsis of my novel

Most writers hate writing a synopsis, so it seems like the perfect challenge for an AI. What I discovered reveals a lot about the current state and limitations of generative AIs like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. The current wave of interest in AI is fascinating because it inspires so much hype on both sides. I […]

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Blood Point Nightmare Vacations Novels

The Kinnitty Stone

Mission accomplished! I have photographed the Kinnitty Stone. It’s an ancient Irish artefact uncovered during the extension of St Finnian’s Church, Kinnitty, in the early 1800s, more than 1,000 years old. It’s also almost impossible to find pictures online and it’s been a challenge to see the real thing. On Saturday evening, with the help […]