Author John Broughton - Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom

Biography

Award-winning author, John Broughton was born in Cleethorpes Lincolnshire UK in 1948: just one of the post-war baby boomers. After attending grammar school and studying to the sound of Bob Dylan he went to Nottingham University and studied Medieval and Modern History (Archaeology subsidiary). The subsidiary course led to one of his greatest academic achievements: tipping the soil content of a wheelbarrow from the summit of a spoil heap on an old lady hobbling past the dig, fortunately, they subsequently became firm friends. He did many different jobs while living in Radcliffe-on-Trent, Leamington, Glossop, the Scilly Isles, Puglia and Calabria. They include teaching English and History, managing a Day-Care Centre, being a Director of a Trade Institute and teaching university students English. He even tried being a fisherman and a flower picker when he was on St. Agnes Island, Scilly. He has lived in Calabria since 1992 where he settled into a long-term job, for once, at the University of Calabria teaching English. No doubt his lovely Calabrian wife Maria stopped him being restless.

His two kids are grown up now, but he wrote books for them when they were little. Hamish Hamilton and then Thomas Nelson published 6 of these in England in the 1980s. They are now out of print. He’s a granddad and happily the parents wisely named his grandson Dylan. He decided to take up writing again late in his career. You know when you are teaching and working as a translator you don’t really have time for writing. As soon as he stopped the translations, he resumed writing in 2014. The fruit of that decision was his first historical novel, The Purple Thread, published by Endeavour Media, London. The novel is set in his favourite Anglo-Saxon period. Subsequently, he has Published seventeen novels set between 450 and 1066 AD, including two trilogies, with Next Chapter Publishers. They also published Angenga a time-travel novel linking the ninth century to the twenty-first. This novel inspired John Broughton to write a series of novels about psychic investigator Jake Conley whose retrocognition takes him back to Anglo-Saxon times.

In order to put his writing versatility to the test, he embarked on a series of detective mystery novels set in London with the Metropolitan Police, who have to deal with a criminally insane serial killer in The Quasimodo Killings; The London Tram Murders and The Thames Crossbow Murders. There are three more novels in this series available. Heartened by this venture, he decided to write an apocalyptic novel entitled The Remnant a science-fiction novel. However, he returned to his first love with a historical saga, Expulsion, about the expulsion of the Vikings from Dublin and the subsequent diaspora. This novel was released in 2022. His latest major project also involved the Vikings: an early medieval Welsh Trilogy: Rhodri’s Furies; Avenging Rhodri; Hywel the Good. Recently, has written a Saxon Shore trilogy and a book based on his region of residence, Calabria: The Aspromonte Riddle. You can find all of John’s books and further info on his website www.saxonquill.com