In Development
These are the stories I’m working on next. Some are complete and going through their final revisions; others are being planned. They move across different genres, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you.
Some are closer than others. Each will arrive when it’s ready. I’ll share publication plans here as they become clearer.
The Blood and Performance universe
A series of novels and short stories, beginning with three former knights who find a new way to make a living through staged fights. I’ve loved getting to know these characters and building a world around them, with the earlier stories laying the foundations for my first big fantasy epic.
Blood and Performance and The Wolf and the Fool can each be read on their own. They share a world and some familiar faces, but each tells a complete story.
Novel · Publication-ready
Aldric, Edrin and Corvern have survived the war, but peace has left the three knights without a lord to serve or much idea of what comes next. When an argument between Edrin and Corvern ends in a drunken fight, the people watching enjoy it rather more than they should. For Aldric and Edrin, that audience becomes the beginning of an unexpected way to earn a living.
They start arranging fights, giving people heroes to cheer and villains to hate. Edrin takes to the attention, Aldric discovers there’s money in being the man a crowd wants to see lose, and Corvern struggles with what his old comrades are doing. As the performances grow, so do the reputations attached to them, putting a friendship formed in war under a very different kind of pressure.
Novel · Publication-ready
Tomas puts on Roland’s wolf-headed helmet hoping it will get him out of an inn unnoticed. Instead, he is sent straight into the performance Roland was meant to give. The crowd sees the Wolf, a celebrated knight and performer. Inside the armour is a man who has no idea what he’s supposed to do next.
With Merrick, Roland’s fellow performer, Tomas finds himself making a living under another man’s name. His mistakes make people laugh, and for a while that seems to be enough. But Roland has a history Tomas knows very little about, and the Wolf’s reputation brings expectations that follow him beyond the performances. When people begin depending on him for more than entertainment, keeping the crowd happy becomes the least of his worries.
Set several years after Blood and Performance, this is a story of its own and can be read independently.
Novella · Final draft complete · Final revisions
Mara prepares the dead for burial at the Priory of Saint Veyra, where she and her brother Jonas have found work and somewhere to live after leaving an unsafe home. While Jonas settles into his role as a Recorder under First Witness Oren, Mara spends her days washing bodies, mending burial clothes and sitting with the people left behind.
One night, four men arrive for burial, but one of them is still breathing. He begs Mara not to call for help. Hiding him means trusting a stranger over the people who have taken her in, and keeping a secret from the brother who helped her escape. As she tries to understand what has happened to him, even the familiar work of the burial house becomes unsettling. A Good Death follows Mara through a story of faith, fear and the responsibility of caring for someone when she can no longer be certain whom to trust.
Short-story collection · First draft nearing completion
A collection of short stories that follows familiar characters and introduces people whose lives sit beyond the main novels. It gives me room to explore different places, relationships and experiences without every story needing to become a novel of its own.
Fantasy epic · Planning stages
My first big fantasy epic will bring several lives and parts of the world into a much larger story. The aim is a complete adventure that welcomes new readers, while drawing on the people, history and relationships established in the earlier novels.
Novel · Planning stages
The final novel I have in mind returns to the performances themselves, and to what a lifetime spent in front of an audience leaves behind. I want to explore ageing, reputation and the parts people keep playing long after the rest of their lives have changed.
Other stories in development
Australian gothic horror · First draft complete · Substantial revisions ahead
Freddy returns to St Judes Valley to help his mother prepare the family home for sale. Sorting through what remains of his childhood brings difficult memories and old relationships back into his life. Here, people know to head indoors when the warning sirens sound.
Set in a community that has learned to live with fear, Father, Who Art brings family relationships and supernatural horror into the same uneasy space. It is a story about the evil people are capable of, what others are willing to overlook, and whether some things should ever be forgiven.
Science fiction · Planning stages
On the divided world of Eidolon, the Wardens have long stood as the most formidable defenders of a civilisation shaped by decades of war. Towering above ordinary soldiers and trained from youth to serve the ruling government, Tarin has never questioned his place among them. But beyond the magnificent cities and promises of prosperity lies a world of poverty, unrest and growing disillusionment. As an old conflict threatens to consume Eidolon once more, Tarin begins to question everything he has spent his life fighting to protect.
Psychological horror · Writing
For as long as he can remember, Desmond has shared his life with a peculiar cast of imaginary cartoon characters. Led by the endlessly cheerful Egg Man, they helped him navigate a childhood marked by experiences he would rather forget.
Now twenty-eight, Desmond is trying to make a life for himself. His imaginary companions have grown older alongside him, their once-colourful personalities fading into something far less innocent. When he returns to his childhood home, memories long left undisturbed begin to resurface, and the characters who once offered him comfort become increasingly unpredictable.
An Arthurian Christmas Tale
Fantasy novel · Planning stages
History remembers King Arthur.
History remembers the Knights of the Round Table.
History remembers Camelot.
But history forgot one man.
It is Christmas in Camelot, and King Arthur’s court has gathered for twelve days of feasting, celebration and merriment. The kingdom enjoys a fragile peace, its knights are celebrated in songs and stories, and the deeds of its king are being committed to history.
Among those entrusted with recording them is a young scribe with an unusual gift: he can speak with the dead.
When a mysterious discovery leads him to question the histories he has spent his life preserving, the young scribe finds himself drawn into a world of ancient secrets, forgotten gods and restless spirits.
As strange happenings disturb the Christmas festivities and the old stories of Britain begin to take on a life of their own, he must venture beyond the familiar halls of Camelot and into the mysterious Otherworld, where some things are better left undisturbed.
For while the world remembers its kings and knights, there are other stories that history has forgotten.
And some are waiting to be told.
Begin with my first novel
While these stories take shape, explore An Extraordinary Struggle for an Ordinary Dream.
Meet the characters and read the opening · View the book and purchase options