Deeds of Darkness;
Deeds of Light

The great thing about writing books is that they acquire a life of their own after they’re published.

Some thirty years ago I wrote Daughter of Tintagel (Headline).  This is a sequence of five novels in which the story of Morgan le Fay is told by four very different narrators, finishing with Herself, in which Morgan adds her own ironic comments on the demonising of her legend. The books have been republished by Cosmos Books as the Morgan le Fay sequence. 

But...

Sally Wright author of exquisite mystery novels died June 15, 2018

"I have lost a treasure...such a friend as never can have been surpassed--" Cassandra Austen on the death of her sister Jane

Level-headed, clear-eyed, valiant-for-truth, Sally Wright saw and understood human nature as it is. Never dramatizing, never demonizing, she used this understanding and her passion for meticulous research to craft her six superb Ben Reese mysteries and her three, perhaps more personal, Jo Grant novels. The mystery-writing community recognized her excellence with an Edgar Award nomination.

Sally was pure class and a true for better-or-for-worse friend. The world needs more Sally Wrights. Sadly, we have one fewer. May she rest in...

Ascension Day, commemorating the bodily ascent of Christ into Heaven, 40 days after Easter, is one of the most joyous feast days in the Christian calendar. The celebration is always accompanied by lovely hymns such as "Hail Thee, Festival Day" and "Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise." And on one very special Ascension Day I was in the monastery which serves as a model for the Community of the Transfiguration where Felicity is studying and got to experience standing at the foot of the tower and hearing the ordinands far above me sing in the...

Oh, the joy of a new arrival, especially such a long-awaited one as A Lethal Spectre, book 5 in my Lord Danvers Investigates Victorian true-crime series. The often-asked question, "How long does it take you to write a book?" Always depends on how you count. There's the moment you get an idea, the moment you start your research in earnest, the moment you actually start writing, the moment you complete your edits...

And then, of course, there's the fact that each of those beginnings overlap. But for me, I would say that I've been wanting to tell this story since, many years ago, we watched a program about Victorian England on BBC and I heard about the Cawnpore Massacre for the first time. I thought I knew a bit about English history, but this...

The historic George, patron saint of England, is much disputed, but he was most likely a soldier who was martyred at the beginning of the Diocletian persecutions.  There are many explanations of the sources of the legends of his slaying a dragon but I like to apply it symbolically to his slaying the dragon of evil by standing strong for his faith.

At least, that's how I portrayed the story in the St. George section of GLASTONBURY, The Novel of Christian England, of my epic grail search novel. You can see the print edition here...

Even though it is World book Day, there seems to be little made of it in America—at least in my neck of the woods. But for several years now I’ll admit to reading with considerable envy my British writer friends’ announcements of event they were participating in for the day.

Well, it happened this year—I managed to be in England...