I love your much of your work and I would like to thank you for keeping me absorbed and entertained for many an evening. I found your warlord chronicles in particular got me back into reading in a big way but it was only after I finished and reflected on them that I realised how macabre the themes in there actually are. Darker than even azincourt, grail quest and the Saxon stories.I am hoping to write a short novel. The way you present the murder, rape and torture seems careful, clever and used as a plot device without revelling and indulging in it. The thrill of reading violence is very different to the feeling I get when I try and write it, which is closer to terror. A fear of revealing some dark part of myself to the people who would read the book first. I know that reading a book is going to be much easier than writing one. I know that reading abuse as part of entertainment and inventing it to entertain others is not so different and is now very normal. Despite this, is shame and embarrassment a normal obstacle when writing? One that can be overcome and reconciled?

Rozie