Last updated 13th. September 2022
Florence, 1544. Duke Cosimo de’ Medici has commissioned Agnolo Bronzino to paint Allegory with Venus and Cupid. Intended as a diplomatic gift for King François of France, the Duke demands the seemingly impossible: Bronzino’s painting is to be an even greater masterpiece than Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. It will be the artist’s defining work: his reputation and, ultimately, his life will depend on its timely completion. He finds the perfect model for Venus in Angelina, a mute and vulnerable Florentine woman whose beauty is ethereal; a silent goddess oblivious to the dangerous new world that surrounds her. As the painting develops, so too does the relationship between the central models. Can Giuseppe, ordered to pose as the adult Cupid, save Angelina from the cruel fate planned for her by the Duke?
In the Museum of London is a Roman roof tile bearing the scrawled words "Austalis has been going off by himself every day for thirteen days".
In the nearby countryside of Kent is the beautifully-preserved Lullingstone Roman villa, with its magnificent wall paintings, mosaic floors, and the earliest known private Christian chapel in Britain.
In 366 A.D. Austalis, a young warrior from beyond Hadrian's Wall, passes through the frontier of Roman Britain. Austalis finds a home, a betrothed wife, and a respected status in Roman Britain, but loses everything and takes a terrible revenge at great cost to all that he loves, to Rome, and to himself.
"...a strong whiff of authenticity" (The Historical Novels Review, May 2001).
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Read the first chapter of Forty Testoons
The Summer Stars is a fictional account of his life by the bard Taliesin. There have been many fantasy novels about Taliesin, but as far as I know The Summer Stars is the only novel to have attempted a reconstruction of his actual life as it might have been in sixth-century Britain. (The Lullingstone Roman villa, which features in Lord of Silver, also appears in The Summer Stars.)
"A story with strong holding-power, which kept me reading until much too late every night." (Rosemary Sutcliff).
"...a well-written, engaging blend of history, fiction, and memoir." (The Historical Novels Review, February 2001).
Read the first chapter of The Summer Stars
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I contributed a chapter to Technical Communication - International, which was published by the German technical communication society tekom.
