My Novels

Walls of Jericho – A Cavalry Tale

In the early years of the 19th century, historians would have us believe that British dragoons were an untrained and uncontrollable rabble – a liability wherever they were posted. In the Duke of Wellington’s words, merely ‘galloping at everything.’
And perhaps that view of the cavalry is true.

Or… maybe not.

In the freezing February of 1805, deep in a Gloucestershire woodland, two young men met by accident.

This is their story.

1808. As Napoleon’s conscript armies smash their way across Europe, a small expeditionary force lands on the coast of Portugal. Its mission: to support Portuguese efforts to eject the French from their country.

Young cavalrymen Corporal Joshua Lock and Lieutenant the Honourable John Killen disembark with the 20th Light Dragoons. But their unlikely three-year friendship, forged in the aftermath of a near fatal accident, ends tragically when Lock is killed in a French ambush.

So when his regiment marches to meet the French in battle, will Killen survive to honour his father’s memory?

And is Lock really dead?

Walls of Jericho is a new novel based on the much-neglected story of British cavalrymen who fought against Napoleon.

Like to read the beginning? Click Sample Chapters.

Leopardkill – A Cavalry Tale (Publishing Date: 1st September, 2013)

 

Autumn 1808.  The French army is gone from Portugal…except for one man. And what he has stolen is deadly secret.

Sergeant Joshua Lock and Captain the Honourable John Killen pursue the spy deep into Spain ahead of Sir John Moore’s British army – a force now ordered to fight the French alongside  native troops. But instead of helping their new allies, the Spaniards seem to have turned against them.

Their elusive quarry still free, Killen’s discovery of Lock’s affair with a fellow officer’s wife drives the childhood friends apart as savage winter storms grip the Galician mountains. With discipline breaking down and Spain’s armies in disarray every man must decide for himself – who is friend and who is foe? Should the outnumbered, starving British stand and fight, or run for the sea, and home?

Whilst unbeknown to the bickering allies, Bonaparte himself is storming through Spain with but a single purpose…

…to destroy every ‘mangy English leopard.’

Like to read the beginning? Click  Sample Chapters