Category: WRITER

Sneak preview of The Synchronicity Code

Here is the second preview of The Synchronicity Code, the third and final book in the series. I hope you like it. Please comment because your feedback is valuable to me.

The Synchronicity Code

We reached the street above the Street of the Salt Sellers and turned into it. Some way along it, Guillaume pointed to a small outcrop of rocks to the left.

“That courtyard. The entrance should be in there.”

Two Roman guards stood guard outside a heavy iron grill in a courtyard.

“Now what?” Hugo asked. Continue reading “Sneak preview of The Synchronicity Code” →

Memories of the 1960s – School

Prepare to have all the myths of how school was Heaven in the 60s blasted away and for myths that it was Hell to be destroyed. This is what it was like for me.

Take a guided tour of my school.

I spent my school years, until the age of fourteen, in our county. Now, I am not saying our true-blue ultra-conservative county was backward, but the last time I looked at the council’s website it had chains running down each side! That was back in the 90s. In the 60s, they were just about as blue as you can get, and they certainly believed in giving every child’s sanity a run for its money.

The county’s model of education was simple: your kid had to pass their special Twelve-Plus exam to get a proper education. (All counties had the Eleven Plus, but we had the Twelve-Plus for grammar school applications and our school didn’t do the Eleven-Plus.) Anything else was failure and rewarded with being sent to a ‘secondary-modern,’ which in our county meant a school for dunces. There you would never get the chance to do O-Levels or A-Levels and you would certainly never go to University. So every day of your school life, you were having the message ‘Success is everything’ rammed down your throat. Unfortunately, the flip-side of this philosophy was the message that ‘your humanity is nothing.’ It was only many years later that we would all discover Hans Eysenick’s IQ-based formula for the eleven-plus and twelve-plus exams was all based on fake research. Continue reading “Memories of the 1960s – School” →

What is 1st Century Jerusalem really like?

This week; Sneak Preview returns and a brief discussion about getting historical accuracy in novels: What was 1st Century Jerusalem really like?

Sneak Preview

Today, I have a little treat for you, the first sneak preview of Ordo Lupus III:

As we climbed up the sloping streets, myself wearing a black kudra, few even glanced at us.
“Are there usually this many soldiers?” John asked, glancing at a centurion.
“No. There are more than usual, even for Passover. The City has been tense for days now.”
We walked towards Herod’s Palace in the north-west corner of the City. Every pavement and street corner was crammed full of busy traders, customers and stalls, selling food, wine, beer from Egypt, every type of cloth and garment.
“What’s that?” John asked, pointing to a tower, topped with a four-sided pyramid.
“King David’s tomb.” Continue reading “What is 1st Century Jerusalem really like?” →