beneath 21st
Century England
COMING IN SEPTEMBER 2013: Saxon’s Bane by Geoffrey Gudgion
Solaris is proud to announce a 2013 debut novel that brings the Dark
Ages crashing into the 21st Century.
Geoffrey Gudgion’s historical supernatural thriller, Saxon’s
Bane, will be published in September 2013.
A contemporary novel with a thrilling historical heart, Gudgion’s first
novel is set in the 21st century but grounded in the Dark Ages, with a Saxon
legend at its heart.
The past invades the present in this beautiful, lyrical and frightening
tale, inspired by Gudgion’s love of ancient, ethereal places, and his eye for signs
of the distant past in the English landscape of today.
"It's a rare occasion when a submission comes in that I have to
read right the way through in one go,” said Jonathan Oliver, editor-in-chief of
Solaris. “Saxon's Bane was such a
book. Discovering a new writer is always a thrill, and Geoffrey's novel is of
such a high calibre that I can't wait for people to read it."
Fergus Sheppard’s world
changes forever the day his car crashes near the remote village of Allingley.
Traumatised by his near-death experience, he returns to thank the villagers who
rescued him, and stays to work at the local stables as he recovers from his
injuries. He will discover a gentler pace of life, fall in love ¬ and be
targeted for human sacrifice.
Clare Harvey’s life will never
be the same either. The young archaeologist’s dream find ¬ the peat-preserved
body of a Saxon warrior ¬ is giving her nightmares. She can tell that the
warrior had been ritually murdered, and that the partial skeleton lying nearby
is that of a young woman. And their tragic story is unfolding in her head every
time she goes to sleep.
Fergus discovers that his
crash is uncannily linked to the excavation, and that the smiling and beautiful
countryside harbours some very dark secrets.
As the pagan festival of
Beltane approaches, and Clare’s investigation reveals the full horror of a Dark
Age war crime, Fergus and Clare seem destined to share the Saxon couple’s
bloody fate.
About the Author
Geoffrey Gudgion left
school at 17 to join the Royal Navy, who sponsored him to read Geography at
Cambridge University. He made his first,
now embarrassing, attempts at writing fiction during long voyages in frigates
and an aircraft carrier. In a subsequent
business career, he rose to become MD or CEO of several technology companies,
and discovered that life in large corporations was equally incompatible with
writing a book. Frustrated with literary
false starts, he stepped off the corporate ladder and now divides his time between
writing and freelance business consulting.
Geoff likes his plots to have a
scent of ‘otherness’, an ethereal or spiritual dimension. He also has a strong sense of place that can
be traced to his geography professor at Cambridge, who inspired his love of the
English landscape and taught him to see traces of the distant past in the
patterns of how we live today. No surprise, then, that Geoff’s first novel
should be set in the 21st century but be grounded in the Dark Ages, and have at
its heart an Anglo Saxon legend.
Geoff lives with his wife in the
Chiltern Hills between London and Oxford.
When not writing or consulting, he’s also a keen horseman and a very bad
pianist. Both of these passions have
been known to creep into his writing.
For all press enquires
please contact Michael Molcher
on +44 (0)1865 792 201 or press@rebellion.co.uk
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