Warrior Princess and Errant Page

The first and most complete novel, Podevin, is a fictionalised account of Good King Wenceslas’s page. It’s AD935, and Podevin has just witnessed King Wenceslas’s assassination and, at nineteen, becomes a hunted man. While learning how to live in the forests around Prague, Podevin maintains dangerous contact with Wenceslas’s sympathisers at court. He is forced to face his enemies, including an elder half-brother who has usurped his inheritance: in a fight to the death, will Podevin prevail and be able to save his friends, or will his half-brother’s cronies get to him first as he flees back to the forest?

The full title is ‘The Premyslid Chronicles, Book 1: Warrior Princess and Errant Page,’ and this novel is currently scheduled to appear in early spring 2025, under the banner of Resolute Books. It is the first of a planned trilogy.

Some of those who read early drafts requested some form of map. Therefore, courtesy of Alastair Oakley, here is an illustration of Podevin’s Bohemia.

The Premyslid Chronicles Book 2:

The Would-Be King

The second, book in the series, hopefully to be published late 2025, picks up Podevin and Emma’s story a few years after the end of book 1. Podevin has been living, happily enough, in the forests around Prague, while Emma has been coping with being consort to the heir of the Bohemian throne. Relations with Saxony have not been great and, as a last ditch effort to avoid all0out war, Emma sends Podevin to the Saxon capital city as a peace envoy.

Through a series of misunderstandings, Podevin finds himself a prisoner at the Saxon court. Due to the ongoing rebellion by Boleslav, the Bohemian ruler, Otto, the Saxon king, decides to use Podevin as leader of the Bohemian renegades in an effort to drive Boleslav from his throne.

In this life and death struggle, Emma’s husband decides to flee, but is caught by Podevin’s troops: will Podevin order the death of his rival, opening the way to become King Podevin of the Bohemians - and thus condemning Emma and her children to certain death as well - or will be capable of scarfing himself so she and her family can survive?

The White Maroon

The third novel has progressed no further (at the time of writing this) than a first draft. In The White Maroon, Jake McGee is falsely accused of horse-stealing and is transported from Restoration England out to the Americas. When the ship stops off in the Caribbean, Jake jumps ship and ends up being taken in by his aunt – who was herself transported after Cromwell’s depredations in Ireland – but is now a brothel madam in 1660s Port Royal, Jamaica’s capital ‘city.’ However, his aunt treats him no better than a slave, so Jake further rebels by running off to join Harry Morgan’s privateering raid on Panama.

On his return to Jamaica, Jake is tricked out of his hard-won booty, and flees again. He ends up in the jungle, living in a village with a group of former slaves. Here he meets up with Rachel, a black slave-girl whom Annie forced to work as a prostitute. As the two become close, disaster strikes when it is discovered someone has given away their position to the British. The British militia set out to kill or capture the runaways, with Annie’s husband at the head of the column. Accused of being the traitor, which side will Jake fight on: with his white kin in the hopes of getting his fortune returned as promised, or with his newly-suspicious black friends in the hopes of claiming the love of his fellow run-away, Rachel?