"What if" stories – historical fiction?

Historical fiction is a broad church; a re-telling real events, quasi-biographical fiction, romantic, adventure, fantastical and detective stories, tales from the cave to the 1960s and set in every country and social situation you can imagine. And within that mix are counter-factual, alternative history stories, the ‘what ifs’ which project a possible different timeline from […]

History, mystery and derring-do - a reading selection

“A cracking tale” – an expression I often use. Stories that make your pulse hammer, your gut grip and your breath catch. You are chasing renegades, fighting in the Peninsula, sailing on the high seas, plotting new conquests, spying for your country, in the arena sword in hand, escaping to a new colony, engulfed in […]

Rome and Washington DC

As I walked past the colonnaded white buildings around the Capitol, the National Mall and the Federal Triangle, I knew I couldn’t be the first visitor to make a connection between Washington DC and ancient Rome.

Both sat/sit on a series of hills and both were/are centres of world power.

The massive scale of prestigious […]