The Saga Continues!

I'm delighted to be able to confirm that Old Street will be publishing the next three 'journals of Matthew Quinton'! The third book, The Blast That Tears The Skies - set against the twin backdrops of the battle of Lowestoft and the great plague of 1665 - will be published next year; I'm currently revising it, when not distracted by Wimbledon or the urge to read yet more of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which I'm only just catching up with. The fourth book, The Lion of Midnight, is set early in 1666. Most of the action takes place in Sweden, then at the height of its power as one of the largest and most feared empires in Europe; as previously mentioned in this blog, I had a very enjoyable time in Sweden earlier in the year,  carrying out some really productive research in Kalmar and Gothenburg. I've already started writing Lion and will be getting back to it full time after completing the revisions of Blast. The fifth book will centre on the Four Days' Battle of 1666, which as its name implies was by some distance the greatest battle of the entire sailing navy era, while the sixth will culminate in one of the most famous events in British history - the Great Fire of London.

Thanks to Ben Yarde-Buller of Old Street for his faith in the series, and to my agent Peter Buckman for all his hard work in bringing about this outcome. I'm really looking forward to taking the series forward, and to placing Matthew and his friends at the heart of some of the most dramatic events of the seventeenth century!