My new novel has been released in the UK in paperback form, but now is available to customers in many other countries without the need for expensive international shipping. I have now released the book on the Amazon KDP service, for people who live outside the UK. If a customer buys the book through their […]
After quite a lot of work by my good friend, Mike Clark of NFCW and a lot of reading up by me today… the novel has now been released as an e-book for Kindle readers. Kindle Unlimited subscribers can download it for free, which sounds a bit of a raw deal for me – but […]
My aim is to write a series of short essays, to provide some background to the period in which ‘Long Way Home’ is set. Dafydd Thomas was always destined to have a career in railways, since he first appeared in his father’s story. (Book one of which – Turning of the Wheel is on course […]
Q; Does the story continue from where we left off in ‘By the Banks of the Rheidol’ A: Yes, but there is a ten year lag from the end of that book. ‘Long Way home’ starts in 1915, with Dafydd returning to Aberystwyth. After ten years, he has worked his way up to being a […]
After a gap of a few years, I have published the sequel to ‘By the Banks of the Rheidol.’ The story is set ten years hence, where Dafydd has managed to secure a transfer to Aberystwyth as a fireman. Convinced he has moved on from his failed romance with Gwen, he soon finds that lingering […]
One of the things about history is that sometimes it throws up much better plots than you could ever think of. I have been guilty in the past of using snippets from my own family’s history. Not every time, but sometimes stories can be formed on the basis of real events. In ‘By the Banks […]
It’s been over a year since ‘By the Banks of the Rheidol’ was published and the novel has been going well. Yet the story didn’t end there – how could it? I have been busy planning to release a sequel, which takes the story onwards from 1915. Dafydd has been working as a frieman in […]
For those who are not aware, Trefechan is the area of Aberystwyth that lies across the harbour from the town of Aberystwyth, underneath pen dinas. These days, it hosts the fire station and the marina, but is mostly residential. For reasons that are not officially recorded, people from Trefechan have been historically called Turks or […]
The village of Talybont (pron. ‘Tal-uh-bont’) in Ceredigion lies eight miles North of Aberystwyth. It features in By the Banks of the Rheidol, as Dafydd lives there from 1896 to 1899. However, it has also changed dramatically since this time. The sleepy village of today is not the bustling settlement of the past. The centre […]
It is very difficult not to look at the past through the tinted spectacles of the present. Society’s attitudes and expectations are always different in different eras. Morals and tolerances are certainly beyond compare. Geographic locations also change their appearance. As a great example, look at a ruined castle and think of its once grandeur […]