Death at Hallowtide — A low-fantasy murder mystery

It's Hallowe'en in a few days — just the right time to start blowing the trumpet of my new book, Death at Hallowtide, written under an impenetrable pseudonym. It combines mystery and low fantasy, and is set in a (sadly, fictional) part of Ireland where the boundaries with the otherworld(s) are rather more porous than usual.

Mini-reviews 2

I suffer from intermittent insomnia, and always have some reading material, often downloads from Project Gutenberg, lined up on my e-reader to while away the sleepless hours. Here are three from this year:

Weekly Round-up: 2025 Week 6

Researching & Planning

Indulged in Saturday lunch at a favourite café, over which I discussed at length with the BdR Editor ideas for a conference paper (am currently planning an abstract).

Read two articles about archives and archivists in the popular imagination.

Mini-Reviews 1

In line with one of my (many) new year's resolutions, I am trying to write at least a brief review note of what I read, as both aide memoire and an exercise in concision. I post them on Bluesky and Mastodon as I go along, and provide an 'omnibus edition' from time to time on this blog. I read a number of short stories by Ted Chiang recently, mostly from his 2002 collection Stories of Your Life and Others, and this forms the subject matter of this first omnibus post.

Weekly Round-up: 2025 Week 4

My blog posting happens in fits and starts, but I really do mean to be a bit more consistent this year. The scramble to find social media niches that are not toxic for one reason or another is in all probability futile, and wondering/worrying about its efficacy is also something of a distraction. So, while I still value the connexions I can make and maintain on Bluesky and Mastodon, I find that blogging and the blogosphere is a more comfortable fit for the way I write and approach the world. 

My 2024 reading year

Now that we have both feet in the new year, I thought I would look back over my reading for last year. It was a busy enough schedule, as the works listed below do not include book chapters or articles read for academic purposes. 

Happy Hallowe'en!

Just the right time for a quick plug for my short story, 'Hallowtide Boar'. It is not a Hallowe'en-y story, but it does take place on the day. Available as a standalone ebook or in the collection Fluctuation in Disorder, you can read a bit more about it in this blog post.

   

        

books2read.com/HallowtideBoar

books2read.com/fid