Will Swyfte, who made his debut in the Elizabethan chapter of Jack of Ravens will be going solo in a new short story to appear in a prestigious fantasy anthology from Solaris later this year.

Entitled ‘Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast’, the tale fits into the mythos established in my recent books. It’s Christmas Eve, 1598, and the aristocracy of Elizabeth’s court has gathered at a country house for a night of debauchery. Will Swyfte, Elizabethan England’s greatest spy, is despatched by spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham to prevent a terrible turning point in the cold war with Faerie. But the Tuatha de Danann are gathered in the cold wastes beyond the house and will do anything to achieve their aim before dawn breaks.

Details on publication date and other authors coming shortly.

If you don’t visit the messageboards, you may like to know that the title of the next book is The Burning Man (Kingdom of the Serpent Book Two, to give it its full title).

What does it mean? All I can say is that the Burning Man is a motif that runs through the entire book (as the Ravens did in its predecessor) - and quite literally hangs over all the characters.

I still don’t have an official publication date, but my deadline for delivering the completed manuscript is June - and I fully intend to hit that mark.

I’ll be posting links to an extract and the cover shortly.

Here.

Anyone disconcerted by what has come to be known as my “brawling, boozing and shagging post” below (all in the dim and distant past, obviously, now that I am confined to a single room writing like those monks in The Name of the Rose…), should take a look here. Clearly, in the writing world I am something of a saint.

Remember: all writers are monsters. Do NOT invite them into your house.