How it all began

Hi, all, I wondered if some of you might like to know how ‘Denua -Warrior Queen’ came to be written? So I thought I’d write a blog to tell you! Here it is!

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, about two weeks away from the print release of ‘Denua -Warrior Queen’, I thought I’d write a little to let you know how this all happened to me -and ‘happened’ is the appropriate term.

All my life I’d considered myself a scientist, with a factual, scientific view on the world. Let others be creative. Those who think that way will do it naturally. Not me.

Then I had a back operation. Successful, since you ask, a nice man fixed one of my discs which had misbehaved.

Maybe you’ve had general anaesthetics over the years, they’ve gone from the equivalent of waking like you’ve been clubbed by a cave-man, to surfacing from the most delicious refreshing snooze.

Well they wheeled me back to my ward, in my lovely drifty state, and instead of my thoughts being strictly vertical, like your average scientist, they went lateral.

I started thinking, what about if an amazing scientific discovery had happened centuries before we discovered it, then got lost, then a 20th century archeology team had discovered the evidence buried under – what? How about a thick Anglo-Saxon shield?

And so was born the story of Savant, considered a ‘Half-wit’ by his contemporaries. But as he was of high born Anglo-Saxon lineage, so they had to treat him with respect. We would immediately recognise him as having high-functioning autism, with those hardly believable capabilities we have recognised these days, and sometimes see in the media.

Savant’s lesser capabilities were to do with social contact, which is why he was labelled, but being high-born, he was also kept safe, and allowed a certain amount of freedom.

So the story revolves around a murder mystery, which involves an Anglo-Saxon queen who has medical skills. (Did you know, that unusually for the time, the Anglo-Saxons educated both girls and boys, so they had women doctors -or at least their version?)

Anyway, Savant’s amazing prescient scientific discovery enables the queen to solve the crime, through many dangerous adventures. Then his scientific discovery gets lost for over a thousand years.

Can’t quite keep science out of it, can I?

And I can’t tell you what he discovered, because that would give the game away. So you’ll have to wait!

And that’s my first book.

But that’s not the one you’re getting! (Though you may one day – I have plans, you see!)