My new novel, Judge Rosa Somberly: The Caiman v Tau al-Gorz is an eco-fantasy for everyone. Fast action, mystery, monsters and time travel – it’s all there – but at the heart of the story is the clash between unrelenting development and the natural world.
Thanks to Benji, a young urban explorer and art thief, you break into the The Court of Last Resort through a padlocked attic, where justice rules and anyone (or anything) can seek out the services of the Judge. Because of her father’s untimely death, Rosa becomes the judge at a young age and Benji is sentenced by the old Judge’s corpse to protect Rosa from the follies of the human world and the cruelties of the elementals. Rosa appoints him her Judge’s Associate.
With Benji’s help she must learn judging to bring the world into balance.
You’ll meet angry cats, an ogre with his mad tattoos, jaded cops, and a gang of art thieves who team up with Rosa to solve an ancient mystery.
All of my books are fast paced action adventures with a simple message – Look after the planet!
My first novel, The Capricorn Sky (2020) and its sequel, The Kyoto Bell (2021) are speculative thrillers set in a climate-changed Australia, a hundred years from now.
I’ve written a gazillion short stories, plus plays, musicals, jokes, songs, poems, pantomimes, press releases, speeches, reportage, comedy, features, editorials, you name it, but … I’ve always been a paid-up member of the fiction faction and my first real love is the novel.
A novel is a great river of imagination where both writers and readers, young and old, can plunge and be pulled along in those twisty currents of ideas, images, conversations, stories, worlds, and yes! You can travel through time, sitting on your couch.
As for my personal details (thanks for asking), I was born in Scotland and I went to school in 4 continents by the time I was 11. My family moved to Australia’s tropical North where I grew up.
There I worked as both a journalist and sometime playwright and musician. I moved to Canberra in the 1990’s working in Federal politics in the Senate and in Government and then at the Australian Institute of Criminology which tuned up my understanding of both criminality and the justice system.
What I have encountered over the years, I now use as inspiration for exhilarating, entertaining fiction.
Mostly I just want my readers to enjoy the journey. It’s why I write, after all; I want to tell stories that are fun and exciting to read, with characters you can connect with.
This website has links to all my books, though you can find a decent number of them in bookshops and on Amazon Kindle, Apple Books and many other e-book platforms.
I’ll be launching Rosa in Canberra on September 18 – watch for details – and I look forward to talking about the otherwordly judge through interviews, festivals, media and book related events.
Over the years my work has appeared in publications such as:
LiNQ Magazine (James Cook University); North of Capricorn – An Anthology of Verse (Foundation for Australian Literary Studies); Spinning the Sun – Stories of Tropical Australia (El Kumanand Press, 1995); Scorpion Tails – Four Tropical Novellas (El Kumanand Press, 1996); and Island Magazine.