Hey #UK and #US readers! It's time for a #SummerSale! 

Get more than 200,000 words of #Tudor mystery and mayhem for less than a Starbucks coffee!

US: https://amzn.to/3dL5hp0

https://amzn.to/3d9XSjD

UK: https://amzn.to/3g72RSF

https://amzn.to/345v7D1

#histfic #kindledeals 

Some Pre-Launch News...

Ok. Little announcement for you.

I'm launching Thieves' Castle via an @Indiegogo campaign in several weeks!

Did a lot of thinking, took a few deep breaths (& a shot of tequila). I'm heading down the self-publishing route once more...

Here is the "pre-launch" page with a little more info about the book and how you can support the crowd-funding campaign.

https://bit.ly/2CR8Tru

Wish me luck!

Canada Sale At Last!!

Hey #Canada! THE JESUIT LETTER is an #AmazonKindle Feature Deal in May!

Enjoy Elizabethan skulduggery for only $1.95!

It's been a weird quirk of Amazon's discounting system that I haven't been able to offer a discounted version to the Canadian market until now, and now, only because Amazon has kindly selected it as a Feature!

http://amzn.to/2p7oTdE 

Holding my annual #Shakespeare Sale, Apr 21-25!

If you are in the US or the UK, THE JESUIT LETTER is available for $.99 & BLACK DOG is FREE!


http://amzn.to/2cURPlk

Inspirations

Check out my new article on the ideas and sources that inspired THE JESUIT LETTER, posted on Mary Anne Yarde's terrific book blog Myths, Legends, Books & Coffee Pots.

"You might think, given the subject matter, that the primary inspiration for THE JESUIT LETTER was William Shakespeare, however, in actuality it was his father."

For more...

http://maryanneyarde.blogspot.ca/2016/10/authors-inspiration-dean-hamilton.html

Psst.... Forgot to tell you. BLACK DOG is free for Kindle until Oct 5th!

http://amzn.to/2dwxQvt

Indie BRAG Interview!

My first real author interview as a IndieBrag Honoree is up!

Please go have a look! And tell your friends!

Kind of exciting (at least to me!). Check it out!

https://aliteraryvacation.blogspot.ca/2016/07/interview-with-brag-medallion-honoree_19.html

IndieB.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree!

It's official!

THE JESUIT LETTER is now an @IndieBrag Medallion Honoree!

For those that haven't run into this before, “indie” refers to self-published books and B.R.A.G. is an acronym for Book Readers Appreciation Group.

The IndieB.R.A.G. Medallion is a quality mark that is applied to independently published books that achieve a high standard of quality - covering  writing, plot, characterization, dialogue, style, editing, formatting, cover design and more. Only about 10% of the books submitted for review walk away with a Medallion, so hitting this achievement is a significant mark for any book.

So. YAY!!!

Go see: http://bit.ly/1tcXWI4

And I get some fancy foil logo stickers for my printed books!

Shakespeare 400 Celebration Sale!

Amazon.com - http://amzn.to/1VZ6NqX
Amazon UK - http://amzn.to/1T6QxC0

Sorry Canada! My apologies!  The Amazon system isn't set up to allow me to provide Amazon.ca discounts.

Still Pretty Good‬....

Well, THE JESUIT LETTER unfortunately didn't advance to the "final four" in the 2016 ‪HNS‬ Indie Award, but still did pretty damn good for a debut novel, making it to the Short-list!

That puts it in the top nine books out of the 300-odd indie books the Historical Novel Society reviewed in the last year...so YAY!

‪#‎StillPrettyGood‬...

Here are the Final Four!

M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction - SemiFinalist!

Terrific news!

THE JESUIT LETTER is a semifinalist selection for M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction!

The list of Semifinalists 2016 in order of submission:

Helena P. Schrader – Defender of Jerusalem
Carol Anne Dobson – Hecate’s Moon
Lucienne Boyce: Bloodie Bones
Stuart Blackburn: Into the Hidden Valley
Karen Charlton: The San Pareil Mystery
Gemma Lawrence: The Heretic Heir
Dean Hamilton: The Jesuit Letter
Kermit Roosevelt: Allegiance
Nuala O’Connor: Miss Emily
Tobias: Prue Batten


The finalists will be announced in May.

http://bit.ly/22tTBzG

Testing. Testing. Later there will be a quiz...

Just testing a new promotional .gif idea. These all are variously optimized to reduce the file size etc.

Any feedback? Thoughts? Overwhelming urge to order my book?

And gentlemen in England now a-bed, Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here...

In the U.K.?

Now's your chance to nab THE JESUIT LETTER from Amazon.Co.UK for a mere £0.99!

On sale Feb. 1 - 4, 2016, as a Kindle Countdown Deal.

amzn.to/1QGF9xf 

Go! Now! Grab one!

And thanks! Be sure to tell your friends!

A Great Way to Start a New year!

What a great way to start 2016!

Woke up this morning to the news that THE JESUIT LETTER has been selected for the Historical Novel Society's 2016 HNS Indie Award Shortlist, alongside eight other terrific books!

About 38 books were long-listed by HNS reviewers throughout 2015, then the list was narrowed to a short-list of nine, to be followed by a selection of four finalists, and then, in September, the Indie Award winner!

It is a huge honour to have made the short-list, as there are some excellent books in competition. Best of luck to everyone! Have a look at the shortlist below, you are sure to find some great historical fiction to get you through the winter!

HNS Indie Award 2016 shortlisted titles :

WHEN SORROWS COME Maria Dziedzan https://historicalnovelsociety.org/revie…/when-sorrows-come/

BLOODIE BONES Lucienne Boyce https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/bloodie-bones/

AURELIA Alison Morton https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/aurelia/

A PRIDE OF POPPIES Julia Bozza & others https://historicalnovelsociety.org/revi…/a-pride-of-poppies/

FOSSIL ISLAND Barbara Sjoholm https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/fossil-island/

FAR AWAY Victoria Blake https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/far-away/

THE JESUIT LETTER Dean Hamilton https://historicalnovelsociety.org/revie…/the-jesuit-letter/

ONE SUMMER IN ARCADIA Bill Page https://historicalnovelsociety.org/r…/one-summer-in-arcadia/

OUT OF TIME Loretta Livingstone https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/out-of-time/

From these nine books, four will be selected as finalists and the winner and runner up announced at HNS Oxford 2016 Conference in September.

HOLIDAY SPECIAL!

Still shopping? Need a stocking stuffer?  Grab some great holiday reading!

THE JESUIT LETTER is available on Kindle via Amazon.com for only $.99!

Limited time offer from Dec 23-25.

"a rousingly good debut novel" - The Historical Novel Society 

★HNS Editors Choice★

★HNS Indie Award 2016 Long-list Selection★

Get your copy of THE JESUIT LETTER!

http://amzn.to/1IUH3bC

Note: Apparently the KDP Amazon sales offer is only available via Amazon.com, so if you are looking for it on Amazon.ca, please accept my humblest apologies. Not sure why they have their systems set up in that way, but it is outside of my control...Sorry!

‪#‎histfic‬ ‪#‎Indie‬

Attention Shoppers.....

Something to add to your holiday shopping list...‪‎

THE JESUIT LETTER will be available on Amazon Kindle for $0.99 from Dec 23-25th!

http://amzn.to/1IUH3bC

Shiny!

Alongside the HNS Editor`s Choice logo, I get to add another shiny logo to THE JESUIT LETTER, courtesy the Historical Novel Society reviewing & liking my book!

Here they both are!

Story Competition - Vote Like the Wind!

I've posted BLACK DOG up on www.inkitt.com as an entry into their Fated Paradox mystery writing competition! It's a free read!

Take a look, have a read and if you like it, please give it a vote!

Votes need to be submitted by July 4, 2015 and the story needs to be in the top 10% of selections to qualify for the competition!

So go, fly my pretties and vote like the wind!

Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles

Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles by Bernard Cornwell
is Cornwell's first venture into non-fiction.

The author, best-known for his historical fiction (including the Sharpe series as well as the ongoing Saxon Chronicles, and numerous other excellent pieces of work), manages to combine the clarity of prose of the novelist with the myriad details of the historian, serving up a rousing, reader-friendly account of the famous battle that brought the Duke of Wellington head-to-head with the Emperor Napoleon in a quiet Belgium valley.

Cornwell wastes little time on background players, pulling together a quick overview of the circumstances that led to the battle, outlining Napoleon's flight from his exile in Elba, the rallying of the French forces, the seizure of Paris and the subsequent shock the Hundred Days sent through his enemies, to galvanize both the British and the Prussians. He wastes little time on the politics and focuses mainly on the circumstances and events that propelled Napoleon and his armies into Belgium, to hammer at the seam between the two allied opposing forces, the British under Wellington, and the Prussians under Blucher.

This then was the first battle of the title - Quatre Bras - which saw a piecemeal British and Dutch-German force hold (temporarily) a vital crossroads linking the two allied armies.  Cornwell demonstrates his considerable acumen in providing readers with an accurate, clear picture of why the crossroads mattered to the Prussian-British forces, and what were the vagaries of war that prevented Napoleon from seizing  a critical juncture in a timely fashion.

The second battle is the oft-overlooked Battle of Ligny, which saw the Prussian forces pushed back in a bloody vicious see-sawing fight. Cornwell pulls together the various tactical and strategic threads into a cohesive and understandable picture of the situation - the retreat of the Prussians, the opportunity it opened for Napoleon, and his failure to properly capitalize on it.

The final battle (and the meat of the book) was Waterloo.  Aficionados of military history will find

little new or substantially different in anything Cornwell has written. The Battle of Waterloo has been re-treaded so frequently that most of the controversies that tend to tie historians in knots are often of little consequence to the typical reader. Cornwell is uninterested in shedding any additional light on history, and is more focused on providing a concise, clear and well-documented account of all the major set-pieces made famous in the battle. He lays out a very good descriptive account of the battle, the players, circumstances and tactics utilized by both British and French troops, delves into the personalities of both Napoleon and Wellington and the many subsequent supporting players who played critical roles in what Wellington referred to as "a near run thing. The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life."

Where Cornwell excels is his focus on the experience of the battle through the eyes and position of the common soldier. He discusses the limited view most men had of the battlefield, and the subsequent distortions in accounts that are then magnified over time, politics and memory.

Overall Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles is a rousing and gripping, if unsophisticated, look a the battle of Waterloo.  A critical, detailed, in-depth study of the battle and the history, it is not, but as a generalized account, it is excellent.  It is a solid, well-told look at a critical battle that re-shaped the history of Europe.

It is well worth a read, however if you are already reasonably versed on the battle, Cornwell's fictional account in Sharpe's Waterloo is, frankly, more fun to peruse. Sharpe's Waterloo covers the exact same ground, provides less historical overview but expansively more verve, excitement, sense and colour. Cornwell as a fiction writer is excellent at pulling you into the smoke, confusion and din of battle and Sharpe's Waterloo is one of his very best works and will leave you with a memorable page-turning account that hits all the same high-points as the dryer, more stoic non-fiction account.

Launch Day!

It's Launch Day!

THE JESUIT LETTER, my new novel, is now available for order via Amazon, Kobo & CreateSpace.

What's it about? Ex-soldier turned play-actor Kit Tyburn is entangled in a deadly conspiracy when he intercepts a coded letter from a hidden Jesuit priest. 

So if you enjoy Elizabethan era skulduggery, sword-play& history with a touch of romance, check out THE JESUIT LETTER 

http://amzn.to/1HxfBgw

Go & read like the wind!

...oh, and tell all your friends!