The Writers of Wales Database

JOHN, BRIAN

Publisher Email: greencroft4@mac.com
Publisher Website: http://www.books-wales.co.uk/

Brian John was born in Carmarthen in 1940 and brought up in Pembrokeshire. He is married and has two grown up sons and two grandsons. He studied at Haverfordwest Grammar School and at Jesus College Oxford, where he read Geography and obtained his D Phil degree for a pioneering study of the Ice Age in Pembrokeshire. He then worked as a field scientist in Antarctica and spent eleven years as a geography Lecturer in Durham University. He has travelled widely in the Arctic, Antarctic and Scandinavia. In 1977 he and his family moved to a smallholding near Newport in Pembrokeshire, and for the last 30 years he has made his living as a writer and publisher. He is also actively involved in a number of environmental and community organisations.

He has published hundreds of articles and about 80 books, and among his publishers are Corgi, Collins, Pan, Orbis, Aurum Press, HMSO, Longman, David and Charles, Wiley and Edward Arnold. His published output includes university texts, walking guides, coffee table glossies and books of popular science. Many of his titles have been published by Greencroft Books, and have covered topics of particular interest to West Wales readers - for example tourist guides, books of local jokes, and a series of books on local folklore and traditions. His latest non-fiction title is entitled The Bluestone Enigma.

In recent years he has been working on a series of novels (The Angel Mountain Saga) set in his own home area and focussing on the life and times of the Mistress of Plas Ingli, 1778 -1855. The series has received wide acclaim for its narrative skill, its strong sense of place and its historical authenticity. On Angel Mountain is a Welsh best-seller, having now sold over 25,000 copies. The latest novel in the series is Conspiracy of Angels, published in April 2012.

In April 2012 his children's book The Strange Affair of the Ethiopian Treasure Chest was awarded the inaugural Wishing Shelf Book Prize for children in the age group 6-8 years. The judges in that competition were the young readers themselves.

Brian is Chair of the PENfro Book Festival, and he is also in great demand for talks and discussions on creative writing and small-scale publishing. You can contact Brian through his publishers, Greencroft Books on: 01239 820 470.

Selected Publications:
(all still in print)
Pembrokeshire Wizards and Witches (Greencroft Books, 2001)
On Angel Mountain (Greencroft Books, 2001; Corgi 2006)
House of Angels (Greencroft Books, 2002; Corgi 2006)
Dark Angel (Greencroft Books, 2003; Corgi 2007)
Rebecca and the Angels (Greencroft Books, 2004)
Flying with Angels (Greencroft Books, 2005)
Martha Morgan’s Little World (Greencroft Books, 2006)
Guardian Angel (Greencroft Books, 2007)
Pembrokeshire Coast Path (National Trail Guides) (Aurum Press, 2008)
Echoes and Shadows (Greencroft Books, 2008)
Carningli: Land and People (Greencroft Books, 2008)
The Bluestone Enigma (Greencroft Books, 2008)
Sacrifice (Greencroft Books, 2009)
The Strange Affair of the Ethiopian Treasure Chest (Greencroft Books, 2010)
Conspiracy of Angels (Greencroft Books, 2012)
 

Martha Morgan’s Little World (Greencroft Books, 2006)

This book contains a fascinating insight into a unique and intense relationship between an author, his Mistress and his landscape. Author Brian John provides the thousands of fans of the Angel Mountain Saga with all the information they need to get the greatest possible enjoyment from the five novels. This is the essential companion, including a loving portrait of the heroine, Mistress Martha Morgan, and of the locality in which the stories are set. There are also chapters on other favourite characters, traditions and superstitions, symbols, the social background, and great issues of the day. The author also reveals some of his own secrets; where the stories came from, how he works, and how he welds together fact and fiction.

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Sacrifice (Greencroft Books, 2009)

In the Wild West of Wales, in the year 1808, a shepherd is ambushed one night on his way home from a local hostelry. He is left in the roadway, more dead than alive, with three stripes carved across his chest and a note, pinned to his skin. The note reads For Rhiswallwn. From Gruddnei. So begins a nightmare for Mistress Martha Morgan of Plas Ingli and for her family and servants. Other brutal attacks follow, and two homes are burned down. The finger of guilt points to four strangers who have taken lodgings in the coastal town of Newport, calling themselves government land surveyors. It emerges that there is a bloody 'campaign of retribution' against selected individuals, with Mistress Martha, a widow and mother of five young children, on the top of the hit list. When the net tightens around them. the four sinister impostors disappear.

But Martha knows they will be back, and as the community closes ranks to protect her, more is discovered about their backgrounds, their motives and their grotesque methods of working. Attempts are made on the lives of all the men on the hit list, and in a terrifying final confrontation, Martha at last faces them, and finds depravity on a scale which is almost impossible to deal with. In this face-moving tale the key players will be familiar to fans of the Angel Mountain Saga, and other characters who march through the pages of the book include the eccentric Iolo Morgannwg, hot-tempered busybody Charles Hassall, two exotic prostitutes, and a charming and mysterious Irishman called Dominic Cunningham whose life was complicated enough even before he fell in love with Martha….

To purchase this title from gwales.com, please click on its front cover