John Richard Broughton

Hi, I was born in Cleethorpes Lincolnshire in 1948: one of the post-war baby boom. After attending grammar school and studying to the sound of Bob Dylan I went to Nottingham University and studied Medieval and Modern History (Archaeology subsidiary).

My two kids are grown up now, but I wrote books for them when they were little. Hamish Hamilton and then Thomas Nelson published 6 of these in England in the 1980s. I’m a granddad now and happily his parents named my grandson Dylan. I decided to take up writing again late in my career. You know when you are teaching and working as a translator you don’t really have time for writing.

I retired in January 2014 and began researching the period that has always fascinated me: Anglo-Saxon England. My research homed in on a Pope from Calabria, Italy, where I live, Pope Zachary and from there I chanced upon a letter from a certain Denehard and the idea for my first historical novel 'The Purple Thread' was born. Endeavour Media published it in the summer of 2017 along with my second, set 50 years or so earlier in Southern England with the title Wyrd of the Wolf. Since Endeavour ceased its activities, I've had another 40 novels published by Next Chapter Publishing.

A while back, after writing a sequel to Wyrd of the Wolf, entitled In the Name of the Mother, I took a decision to develop my writing in two directions. There would still be the content of my beloved Anglo-Saxon era but in parallel to my 'pure' historical novels like Perfecta Saxonia and Ulf’s Tale there would also be a line involving the element of involving the past with the present as in my ‘time travel novel’ Angenga and a series of seven books, beginning with a tale of the paranormal entitled Elfrid's Hole (Jake Conley Book 1). Later still, I decided to write a Murder Mystery and with its success, another series was born. There are now 6 Vance & Shepherd Metropolitan Murders novels.

Historical Novels:

The Purple Thread

Wyrd of the Wolf /In the Name of the Mother/The Wyvern's End

Saints and Sinners/Mixed Blessings/Rex Mercorium

Perfecta Saxonia

Ulf’s Tale

Sward and Sword

The Rebel Scribes

John the Old Saxon

St Cuthbert Trilogy - Heaven in a Wild Flower; The Horse Thegn - The Master of the Chevron

Sceapig Chronicles trilogy - The Runes of Victory; Sea Wolves; Blood Eagle

The Saxon Shore Trilogy

Murder and Mystery (Vance & Shepherd Series):

The Quasimodo Killings

The London Tram Murders

Te Thames Crosssbow Murders

THe Thames-Tigris Connection

London's Psycho Cyclist

Time Travel:

Angenga

Paranormal (Jake Conley Series):

Elfrid's Hole

Red Horse Vale

Memory of a Falcon

The Snape Ring

Pinions of Gold

The Serpent Wand

The Beast of Exmoor

Fantasy:

Whiligig

Sci.Fi

The Remnant

Please visit my website for further details.

Children’s Books (All out of print):

The Wild Man of the Four Winds, Hamish Hamilton1982

Fiddler’s Hill and other stories, Thomas Nelson1986

The Alchemist’s Tower, Thomas Nelson 1986

The Municipal Inventor of Barbaria, Thomas Nelson 1986

The Meggies, Thomas Nelson 1987

The Green Ox of Verbena, Thomas Nelson 1987