The Book Plank

Saint's Blood by Sebastien de Castell, Greatcoats #3 How do you kill a Saint? Falcio, Kest, and Brasti are about to find out, because someone has figured out a way to do it and they've started with a friend. The Dukes were already looking for ways out of their agreement to put Aline on the throne, but with the Saints turning up dead, rumours are spreading that the Gods themselves oppose her ascension. Now churches are looking to protect themselves by bringing back the military orders of religious soldiers, assassins, and (especially) Inquisitors - a move that could turn the country into a theocracy. The only way Falcio can put a stop to it is by finding the murderer. He has only one clue: a terrifying iron mask which makes the Saints vulnerable by driving them mad. But even if he can find the killer, he'll still have to face him in battle. And that may be a duel that no swordsman, no matter how skilled, can hope to win. Two years ago Sebastien de Castell...

Guest Blog: The Soundtrack of a Book by Ben Peek Leviathan’s Blood is my sixth book, but it is the second in my big fantasy trilogy, Children. The first was called The Godless . The third, when it is released next year, will be called The Eternal Kingdom . I wrote Leviathan’s Blood mostly in silence. I didn’t always prefer the quiet while writing. I used to listen to music, sometimes loud, sometimes soft, but then, one day – I couldn’t tell you when, to be honest – I turned the music off. It had begun to dig under my concentration. It broke up my words. It had to be turned off so I could write properly. I love music, and though it was turned off while I sat at my laptop and worked, I turned it on in the interstitial spaces of my life. Walking up the road, taking a shower, cooking dinner, gardening: I did all that with music on. At the same time, I also thought about my book. I thought action scenes and battles, I ran through the conversations of characters, thought about...

Guest Blog: THE VICTORIANS by Martin Kasasian People have a tendency to think of the Victorian era as something ancient and lost in the mists of time. But it is the closeness of it that fascinates me. According to Wikipedia, there are at least 4 people still alive who were born during the reign of Queen Victoria. And I have known people who could remember her funeral. The Victorians were the first people to be able to photograph themselves and they did so in vast numbers. No longer dependent on a flattering portrait painter's interpretation of his client, we can see exactly what the queen, Prince Albert and all the royal family looked liked. We can stare straight into the eyes of Charles Dickens, Gladstone, Disraeli, General Gordon, Florence Nightingale or Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Through a few brief flickers of cinematography we can even see the Victorians on the move. Victoria's jubilee procession in 1897 is there for all to watch or there is a clip of the la...