Hello from wintery Bath, and happy new year!

I hope you're getting back into the swing of things as we move into 2026. I'm just finishing edits on my next thriller, Bones of the Deep, details below.

If you prefer a desert thriller to the ocean, Death Valley is on special, with the ebook free on Amazon 22 - 26 Jan, 2026. Click here to check it out on Amazon, or here on other stores. Reviews would be much appreciated!

I'm also back at college, working on my Masters in Death, Religion and Culture, but I plan to start researching my next ARKANE thriller soon. It will be book 14, Crown of Thorns and I'll be starting the research in Paris at Notre Dame, where the relic is kept. I hope that will be out by the end of the year.

A luxury tall ship. A stolen mer-saint. The sea always takes back what is hers.

Marine archaeologist Eve Calder has one chance to make her career. She's helped steal the find of a lifetime: the preserved skeleton of a non-human "saint" entombed in a hidden cave on a South Pacific seamount. Now the bones lie sealed in a pressure-controlled case in the hold of the SV Southern Crosswind, a historic tall ship full of tourists sailing from Fiji to Vanuatu.

But as the ship leaves the shelter of the reefs and enters true blue water, something begins to move in the depths beneath her keel.

Shadows circle in the bioluminescent dark. Hull-shuddering impacts echo through the timber. Strange clicks and inhuman wails vibrate up through the hull. The local crew whisper about sacred shrines and sea spirits.

And then the first body hits the water.

Far from land, hemmed in by rising storm and failing systems, the Southern Crosswind is besieged by a civilisation from the deep: terrifying merfolk who will kill to reclaim their holy dead.

A thriller with teeth, perfect for readers who love monstrous merfolk, ocean survival, and endings that don't flinch.

The story is inspired by my own experience crossing from Fiji to Vanuatu on the tallship Soren Larsen in 1999 (no merfolk though!)

​Click here to register interest in the Kickstarter and see photos of the trip ​

Book recommendations

Here are some of the books I've enjoyed recently.

• ​Slashed Beauties - A. Rushby. I'm fascinated by Anatomical Venuses, wax models of beautiful women made to teach anatomy. This part-historical, part-present day mystery explores how some of them might have been created.
• ​The Fisherman - John Langan. In upstate New York, within the woods, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked and fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing — and of something more, something darker. (This is not a book about fishing though!)
• ​The Macabre - Kosoko Jackson. A picture is worth a thousand nightmares. Art history meets horror spanning generations. I loved this!
• ​The Devil's Atlas: An Explorer's Guide to Heavens, Hells and Afterworlds - Edward Brooke-Hitching. I delved into this non-fiction book as inspiration for an essay I wrote for my course. It is full of fascinating myths and images, and beliefs from around the world.
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Let me know your book recommendations! Just click reply, I'd love to hear from you. Until next time ...