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Blood Point Blood River Nightmare Vacations

Blood Point meets Uncaged Book Reviews

I’m one of the featured authors in the July 2025 edition of Uncaged Book Reviews, an online magazine promoting indie and small press authors. My interview with editor Cyrene Olson covers Blood Point, Blood River and the exciting future of the Nightmare Vacations stories. There’s also a bonus spotlight on my wonderful dog, Layla the […]

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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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Good causes

The Orangutan Foundation: the Big Give day 1

The Big Give is a charity that helps other charities to find sponsors who double their income from public donations. December 3rd kicks off the Big Give Christmas Challenge — if you have some spare change, I’d recommend the Orangutan Foundation. It’s a sad truth […]

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Creative writing

If you love authors, buy ebooks

If you love authors, buy ebooks. Royalties from ebooks are — by a staggering amount — greater than paperback and hardcover books. Pounds against pennies, in some cases. So if you want your authors to have nice things, like enough money to keep writing, pay editors and commission cover artists…buy ebooks. I know, physical books […]

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Blood River Creative writing Horror Nightmare Vacations

Blood River’s new cover shows why you need a professional designer

Blood River, my first Nightmare Vacations story, has a new cover to celebrate its second birthday and the imminent arrival of its sibling: Blood Point. With this new cover, Blood River is available in hardcover for the first time and includes a preview of my new story. Although Blood Point is not a sequel, both […]

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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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Media

Black Country Xtra interview

The charming Lee Benson interviewed me a while back for his Sunday radio show on Black Country Xtra – Listen with Lee*. Our chat popped up on Sunday and you can catch up until January 20th or listen on the player below. We chat about living in Ireland as a Brit, I read from Blood […]

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Creative writing

2022: A year of Irish adventures

If 2021 was a year of change, 2022 was a year of new adventures: I published my first novel. I got to grips with living in a new country. I started a new business. I turned 50 (that still hasn’t sunk in). And I became a doggy daddy. Writing a novel is hard, publishing is […]

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Blood River

5 stars for Blood River: a great start with ARC reviews

Blood River has been winning great reviews from advanced readers at ARC review sites BookSirens and NetGalley in its first month. My debut novel is currently riding high at 5 stars on Amazon UK, 4.4 on Amazon USA, and 3.71 on GoodReads. Here are a few of my favourite quotes. “A really interesting supernatural survival […]

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Blood River Creative writing Horror Nightmare Vacations Novels

Blood River’s journey from Borneo to the Amazon

It’s five years since Blood River‘s journey began, from a notebook in the Borneo rainforest to Amazon Kindle ebook. It’s a roller-coaster tale of supernatural survival horror, and you can buy it here. I’ve no idea how Blood River will fare with reviewers and readers, but it’s been an experiment from day one. It’s become […]