Books like In a Glass Darkly

In today’s world, where negativity and dire situations can easily bombard us, I need to consistently ground myself in hope and light. Real stories about transformation and unconditional love are not only uplifting and hopeful, they are also around every corner. Every one of us is capable of transformation and the giving and receiving of unconditional love. It’s through transformation and unconditional love that we may better understand what it means to be human and, thus, build our capacity for compassion for one another. Through compassion, we can create a better world.

Right from an early age, I have always been interested in the fallibility of the human condition, being particularly conscious of my own faults. People who are too good to be true are of little interest, except that I want to know their faults or their secrets. I have found myself drawn to complex characters, those who have good and bad characteristics, and some of the novels and movies that I have enjoyed most feature such characters. In my career as a lawyer, I have met all kinds of people who have made bad decisions or suffered misfortune, and it has always been a pleasure trying to help them. 

Ghost stories have fascinated me since I was a small child, even when they gave me nightmares every night. I've never lived in a haunted house, been part of a cursed family, or been kidnapped by highwaymen and villainous villains, but I've always sensed some people never leave this world. Despite the nightmares, I also believe ghosts aren't always vengeful spirits but loved ones, beings of light who sometimes just want to say hi. I have been writing stories since I learned to write. Ghost stories have always been a part of me, and I hope to shed a different light on this gloomy genre. 

I have been writing for more than 40 years, and while I don’t normally write gothic literature, it is a genre that has fascinated me since my early youth. While I have written a couple of gothic or horror short stories, I tend to write other types of literature. However, I was pulled into this novel by something I saw on the TV news, and so I put away the novel I was originally working on and set to work on this one instead. The setting and the characters immediately pulled me in. I hope that it’s mystery and unusual characters will do the same for you.

I have been fascinated by the paranormal since I was young: always a lover of ghost stories, I have long felt the spiritual resonance in certain places; the energy and spirits of the past remain trapped within the fabric of certain buildings and the land, waiting for the sensitive to come along. I developed this passion by reading classic and modern-day ghost stories, going on ghost tours, and visiting haunted places. I listen to and record people recounting their experiences of real-life encounters. I write nonfiction books about the paranormal, specifically about Shakespeare’s ghosts and spirits in his county of Warwickshire, and novels that develop this theme. 

As a lifelong bookworm, I have always loved curling up with a book, especially one that takes me on an emotional journey through the characters within. I especially love stories with an ensemble cast of characters linked through one common thread and always knew my first novel would be of this format. A fascination with the stories that lie beneath the surface of everyday life keeps me constantly inspired to create new characters that can bring comfort and familiarity to readers but still explore important life lessons in a gentle way.

I am an author and a reader, and there is little I love more than falling deep into an atmospheric mystery. One that has the texture of dark velvet—something so rich, vivid, and experiential I can almost wrap it around me—and has just the right amount of suspense to keep me turning pages. As an author of historical fiction and mysteries, capturing that immersive, atmospheric sense of place is so important to me. When I see this done well, I want to savor it, study it—and try to get you to read it, too.

Growing up, I didn’t understand the hypersensitivity I felt to my own inner world and the outer. Highly alert to both interoceptive and exteroceptive data, I often felt overstimulated and overwhelmed by the intensity to which I experienced my own feelings, the feelings of others, and sensory inputs. I thought there was something wrong with me because being a feeler is generally seen as a weakness. I now write novels about quiet, sensitive, introspective young people for others who feel like I did, as a way to share the true power within this way of being, which I have discovered to be a gift, not a curse over time.

I am an historian of urban crime and policing. I specialise in metropolitan forces, for example the Dublin Metropolitan Police, London Police, and their colonial counterparts. I am particularly interested in the transnational exchange of concepts and personnel. The latter decades of the nineteenth century saw a lively and consistent movement of police across countries and continents, cross-pollinating ideas and experiences, shaping the future of organised policing. I have traced Australian policing roots to the streets of Dublin and London, which are explored in To Preserve and Protect: Policing Colonial Brisbane (2020) through personal life stories of policemen and criminals alike.

I am a historian of visual culture, and my work explores the ways images can shape and challenge dominant ideas about other species. The ways we choose to represent certain animals (or not) can have important consequences, both in terms of environmental issues but also in terms of the wellbeing of individual animals. Digging deeper into these histories can make us aware that the categories we like to put animals in can shift and change depending on the time period and place. As we confront increasingly urgent climate and environmental issues, understanding these dynamics will be even more important than ever.