Britain’s biggest witch trial. A deadly conspiracy to hide the truth. The brave women who dared to fight back. ‘The Wicked Of The Earth’ “Fans of historical fiction will relish this” S. G. MacLean

@17thCenturyLady @StuartOrme @MuseumCromwell So much interest in this at the minute. Also forthcoming @TheatreRoyalBSE ‘A Tryal of Witches’, while the whole of Anglia has been brilliant to ‘Wicked’.

@residentadviser The elephant trap is to back into a series of 80 - 20 issues on the 20 side. On a single issue, this may look strong even principled (not arguing it in fact is). Across a raft of issues it’s going to look manically ideological at best.

@residentadviser More than just a cultural one - Leninist-Marxist governments utterly disavowed the Frankfurt School and later Foucault and the like.

@mandybu23626477 Sorry to miss you Mandy. Andrew

@dakegra @StockportNoir Great series, deeply impressive development.

@LaceyBonarHull I’m afraid this is the Richard I reason…

@Nico1aRayner Great bookshop - looking forward to my talk there on Monday - and lovely to see The Paris Dancer in such great company. Congratulations.

@ryandarkfire @waterstonesncl Well this is exciting - I’m particularly, and I suppose, obviously, looking forward to this one. I’ll be really glad to see you there! Andrew

“Highly recommended, The Wicked of the Earth is a superb debut novel…praiseworthy for its heart, characterisation, understanding of the human condition in a particular time and place…the novelist’s fine writing and its great page-turning quality.” Many thanks @histnovsoc for this wonderful review of ‘Wicked”.

@kirsteenMM Those grey gaps being all too easily filled with distortions and simplicities. Isn’t that why we write?

I believe that for several succeeding decades political leaders were centrally influenced by the trauma occasioned both the wars socio-religious upheaval they engendered. Although I also believe in that quote he is, as so often, referring to the spiritual condition of the nation. The belief that all souls were in peril unless one imposed godliness is possibly the most difficult one for us to understand today.

Since commencing writing (fiction) about the Interregnum, I have come to appreciate the Royalist view far more fully and fairly, and to see the tensions and fissures on the Parliamentary side. Respect for Cromwell’s, I believe true-hearted if doomed, efforts to navigate a sustainable path for the republic remains.

@bertsbooks Christie, Deighton, Greene, Sebald, Maalouf, Alan Furst Gore Vidal, and, in parts, Robert Harris - when he’s good, he’s very, very good. Too long a list?

Although, if we’re doing a proper northern filter Richard III, alone of all the Normans, Angevins and Plantagenets should sail towards the top, Tudors, especially Liz to rank lower and honourable mentions for Charles I, bowling on the Shieldfield and Cromwell for having his lights punched out by Baron Ogle of Eglingham, but being sporting about it, and for Durham University (the first effort).

@LordPurrtector Wholly agreed. It is part of what makes the period enduringly fascinating, (if difficult to keep up with the literature), not least as a dim, distorted mirror to he present day.

@MickyJohnWalker @DannyBuckUEA Clawed a few points back by exploding in his coffin?