News

For many years only one of my books – Gentleman Captain, my first novel and the first title in the Quinton series – was available as an audiobook. However, I’m thrilled to be able to announce that recently, thanks to the wonderful people at Orlandmedia, a second title now exists in this format, namely Death’s Bright Angel (aka ‘the one with the Great Fire of London’). The production quality and narration are both terrific, so if you like getting your fiction fix by listening to it, then you should snap this up! If we get a strong enough response we might be able to bring out more of the titles as audiobooks.

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I’ve got a new article about the failed British invasion of the Netherlands in 1673 on the splendid Heart of Oak website! How close did we come to having MPs for Brielle and Vlissingen, and why did the invasion force never get beyond Great Yarmouth? Follow the link to find out!

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I’m often asked if and when a new Matthew Quinton book will see the light of day. The good news is that I used the first lockdown of 2020 to finish the latest story in the series, in which Matthew goes to the Caribbean and encounters Captain Henry Morgan. The slightly less good news is that despite the length of time since I wrote it (a hiatus caused both by ‘events, dear boy, events’ and the realisation that I need to do some major edits on it) I can’t yet announce a publication date – it looks as though I’ll have to self-publish this title, which will be a new experience for me, so I’m not sure how long it will take. I’ll keep you posted!

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I’m currently completing work on my long-delayed book on the Stepney family, baronets of Llanelly House which has now been in gestation for something like a quarter of a century! I’d hoped to publish that by now but it’s been pushed back, initially by the impact of the pandemic, then by the pretty tightly spaced deadlines for the Kermorvant series – watch this space, but in the meantime, go to the ‘Future Projects’ page on this site for further information!

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Since 2020 I have been the chairman of the Society for Nautical Research, the oldest and most august organisation in the field. As well as publishing the eminent peer-reviewed journal The Mariner’s Mirror, the Society was largely responsible for saving HMS Victory and for founding the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. It has been a tremendous honour to serve in this capacity and to follow in the footsteps of many great historians and sailors, but the time has come to move on, so I will be standing down at the 2026 AGM.