Category: book spotlight

Cover Reveal!

The Ten Worlds #2: Land, by Bjørn Larssen

Loss. Love. Land. Happy Never After. (A grimdark retelling of the discovery of Iceland. )

The truth Maya fought for all her life turns out to be a lie a thousand years long. She neither understands nor knows how to wield her hidden power, simultaneously endless and limited, forcing her to face responsibility for the harm she causes and parry countless questions she has no answers to. Neither time nor space can stop her – but can she stop herself?

Bound with an unbreakable love spell, Magni and Thorolf, both raised in darkness and pain, only share one thing: the fear of revealing their truths. One was born to be a God; the other only knows a slave’s life. One craves peace and quiet; the other believes peace is a brief reprieve between wars. As they mourn those they have lost, the constant war of their own threatens to destroy all they have left – each other.

Haunted by Gods old and new, in the shadow of Odin’s raven, they head to conquer the new Ásgard. Apart from their demons, nothing and nobody is what it seems. Unwilling to give up love, freedom, or land they’re fated to live happily never after… unless destiny can be altered after all?

The book includes strong language, depictions of sexual, physical, and emotional violence. Full list of triggers, which may contain minor spoilers, will be provided.

Preorder link:
https://www.books2read.com/thetenworlds2

Website link:
https://www.bjornlarssen.com/land/

Goodreads link:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/217183142-land

Social media:
https://www.bjornlarssen.com/sm/

Bio:

Bjørn Larssen is an award-winning author of historical fiction and fantasy, dark and funny in varying proportions. His writing has been described as ‘dark,’ ‘literary,’ ‘cinematic,’ ‘hilarious,’ and ‘there were points where I was almost having to read through a small gap between my fingers.’

His debut novel, Storytellers, won a Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal (Best Historical Fiction Novel) and was shortlisted for Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Award. His fantasy works, Children and Why Odin Drinks have been shortlisted for eleven (11) Indie Ink Awards – so far; Children was also nominated for a Stabby Award (Best Indie Novel of 2020). Bjørn is a Queer Indie Award laureate (best speculative fiction author) and very proud of it.

Bjørn has a Master of Science degree in mathematics, and has previously worked as a graphic designer, a model, a bartender, and a blacksmith (not all at the same time). He currently lives with his husband in Almere, which is unfortunately located in The Netherlands, rather than Iceland.

He has only met an elf once. So far.

His upcoming release, the second book in The Ten Worlds cycle – Land – is coming out on November 5, 2024.

What if the world you create becomes real?

A spotlight on J.M. Tibbott’s fantasy series, The Pridden Saga.

A prickly young game designer finds herself in a medieval world reminiscent of the video games she creates. Magic, dangerous creatures, and political intrigue were fine as a fantasy, but navigating them all in real life is a different challenge. Will Kat find her way through the maze of this new existence?

An enchanting adult fantasy, The Arrival is Book I of The Pridden Saga. Six books are published; the seventh has a planned release of autumn 2024. Find out more at the author’s website:

https://jmtibbott.com/books/

 J. M. Tibbott is a prize-winning author, a writing instructor and editor. J.M. has been writing since grade school, and continues to study literature and the English Language. She believes there is always something new to learn. 

Her works include magazine and newspaper articles, newsletters, online blogs, and story collections. With the 6th book of The Pridden Saga published, J.M is deep into the final conclusion in Book 7. Another couple of series are tucked up her sleeve, the first with a decided Detective bent. After that, more are planned but only her muse is in on the secrets. 

A Memory of Murder

Book 5 in the Jan Christopher Series by Helen Hollick

A Memory of Murder is the fifth in Helen Hollick’s Jan Christopher series, set in a less complicated time (at least as far as electronic communication is concerned!). It’s 1973, and Jan (January) Christopher’s work as a library assistant is disrupted by the decorating of the library, and by one particularly annoying workman who won’t take Jan’s engaged status as a deterrent to his attentions. Her Easter holiday plans with her fiancé, DS Laurie Walker, are disrupted too: a young girl has gone missing, and odd-but-significant objects are appearing at Jan’s family home. At least the circus arrives on its annual circuit to provide some distraction!

The details of life in a London suburb in the 1970s (Hollick draws on aspects of her own life in recreating this world) bring a comfortable sense of nostalgia to A Memory of Murder. The pace is in keeping with the time and place, and while the book fits into the ‘cosy’ subgenre, with a limited number of suspects, an amateur sleuth, and minimal on-page violence, the story does have a darker edge. Hollick writes with both humour and a keen sense of human nature; she is a talented writer whose books in any genre don’t disappoint. I look forward to what comes next!

THE JAN CHRISTOPHER MYSTERIES by Helen Hollick

A Memory of Murder – a new  cosy murder mystery to solve –  along with library assistant Jan Christopher, her fiancé, Detective Sergeant Laurie Walker and her uncle, Detective Chief Inspector Toby Christopher.

Set in the 1970s this easy-read cosy mystery series is based around the years when Helen was a north-east London library assistant, using many of her remembered anecdotes, some hilarious – like the boy who wanted a book on Copper Knickers. (You’ll have to read the first book, A Mirror Murder to find our more!)

The mysteries alternate between Jan’s home town, and where Laurie’s parents live – North Devon, (where Helen now lives.)

In this fifth episode, there’s a missing girl, annoying decorators, circus performers, and a wanna-be rock star to deal with. But who remembers the brutal, cold case murder of a policeman?

Buy Link:

Amazon universal: https://mybook.to/AMemoryOfMurder

(e-book available for pre-order: published on 18th May –  paperback release to follow)

Or order from any bookstore(cheaper on Amazon)

Reader’s comments:

“Can I say this is the best one (of the series) yet? YES! For the depth of the writing, the maturity of the main character, and the complexity of the premise. It’s cosy…with a few chills for good measure!” Elizabeth St John, author

“I sank into this gentle cosy mystery story with the same enthusiasm and relish as I approach a hot bubble bath, (in fact this would be a great book to relax in the bath with!), and really enjoyed getting to know the central character…” Debbie Young bestselling cosy mystery author

“Jan is a charming heroine. You feel you get to know her and her love of books and her interest in the people in the library where she works. She’s also funny, and her Aunt Madge bursts with character – the sort of aunt I would love to have had. I remember the 70s very well and Ms Hollick certainly gives a good flavour of the period.” Denise Barnes (bestselling romance author Molly Green)

“A delightful read about an unexpected murder in North East London. Told from the viewpoint of a young library assistant, the author draws on her own experience to weave an intriguing tale” Richard Ashen (South Chingford Community Library)

“Every sentence pulls you back into the early 1970s… The Darling Buds of May, but Devon not Kent. The countryside itself is a character and Hollick imbues it with plenty of emotion” Alison Morton, author

“An enjoyable novella with a twist in who done it. I spent the entire read trying to decide what was a clue and what wasn’t … Kept me thinking the entire time. I call that a success.” Reader’s Review

ABOUT HELEN

First accepted for traditional publication in 1993, Helen became a USA Today Bestseller with her historical novel, The Forever Queen (titled A Hollow Crown in the UK) with the sequel, Harold the King (US: I Am The Chosen King) being novels that explore the events that led to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Her Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy is a fifth-century version of the Arthurian legend, and she writes a nautical adventure/supernatural series, The Sea Witch Voyages. She has also branched out into the quick read novella, ‘Cosy Mystery’ genre with her Jan Christopher Mysteries, set in the 1970s.

Her non-fiction books are Pirates: Truth and Tales and Life of A Smuggler. She is currently writing about the ghosts of North Devon for Amberley Press, and another, Jamaica Gold for her Sea Witch Voyages.

She lives with her family in an eighteenth-century farmhouse in North Devon with their dogs and cats, while on the farm there are showjumper horses, fat Exmoor ponies, an elderly Welsh pony, geese, ducks and  hens. And several resident ghosts.

Website: https://helenhollick.net/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helen.hollick

Blog: promoting good authors & good reads: https://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/

But One Life, by Samantha Wilcoxson

“If I had ten thousand lives, I would lay them all down.”

In the early 1770’s, Nathan Hale is a young philosophy student at Yale. There, he, his brother, and their friend, Ben Tallmadge, are busying themselves with intellectual debate and occasional mischief.

Only too soon, their patriotic ideals of revolution and liberty would be put to the test. Forced to choose between love and duty, young Nathan has to face the harsh personal cost of deeply held beliefs as he leaves to become Washington’s spy.

In this powerful novel of friendship and sacrifice, Samantha Wilcoxson paints a vivid portrait of a young man’s principled passion and dedication to his ideals, turning the legend into flesh and blood.

This is the touching and thought-provoking story of how an ordinary boy grew into an extraordinary man – an American hero.

My Review

Samantha Wilcoxson’s But One Life, a biographical novel of Nathan Hale, is thoroughly and deeply researched, immersing the reader in a convincing, detailed recreation of late 18th century colonial life in the United States. The influences on Hale’s life are clearly delineated: faith, bolstered by his brother Enoch’s even deeper religious conviction; classical thought (translated through a popular play of the time, Joseph Addison’s Cato), and the beliefs fostered and developed through debate and discussion during his years at Yale, especially in the Linonian Society.

Hale is a hero to many citizens of the United States, for his actions and his attributed last words: I only regret that I have but one life to give to my country – but he is also a tragic figure, a young man who allowed his impatient desire to contribute to the colonists’ War of Independence against Great Britain to be his downfall.  Unsuited for the role he takes on, untrained and working against his friends’ advice, his bold gesture of patriotism results in his death by hanging. Wilcoxson does not shy away from this interpretation, showing Hale’s actions in his last days as they were: naïve and bound to fail.

Wilcoxson’s novel fleshes out Hale’s life with a writer’s imagination, although only a failed romance strays far from the established facts. Hale’s life may have been one lived in a limited geography, but the ideas of thinkers and statesmen travelled to his world, as did news of the clashes between colonists and British troops even as early as his years at Yale. Here lies my only quibble with But One Life: other than reports of two uprisings involving violence, very little background into the causes of the growing frustration of the colonists with Britain is given: the Stamp and Townsend acts, resulting in taxation without representation; the Port Act, and the insistence by the British parliament that they had political control of the colonies. The discussions at Yale, especially in the Linonian Society, could have provided an ideal vehicle for background, which, while it may be familiar to readers educated in schools in the United States, may not be to readers from other countries.

Nonetheless, But One Life is a solid, well written biographical novel of a man seen by many as an American hero. Recommended.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Samantha Wilcoxson is an author of emotive biographical fiction and strives to help readers connect with history’s unsung heroes. She also writes nonfiction for Pen & Sword History. Samantha loves sharing trips to historic places with her family and spending time by the lake with a glass of wine. Her most recent work is Women of the American Revolution, which explores the lives of 18th century women, and she is currently working on a biography of James Alexander Hamilton.

The Arrow of Exile

Whether in Rome or a dystopian future, from Norwegian falconers to princes, exile can be a choice for survival, or a forced exodus from everything that is loved. Thirteen stories by thirteen historically-inspired writers (including me), newly out in paperback and Amazon e-book.

‘a delightful collection….I highly recommend’ – Amazon reviewer

Creating King Arthur – in Post-Roman Britain

By Helen Hollick

Pendragon’s Banner Celebration Tour April 2023

Thirty years ago in April 1993, one week after my 40th birthday, I was accepted by William Heinemann (now a part of Random House UK) for the publication of my Arthurian The Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy. It had taken me more than ten years to reach that stage of my dream to become a real writer – more than that if you count that I had been scribbling stories since the age of thirteen.

So why King Arthur? I had never liked the Medieval tales of knights in armour, the Holy Grail and courtly chivalry – I couldn’t stand Lancelot (what on earth did Guinevere see in him?) Why did Arthur go off on a religious quest for so many years? For me, none of those tales had the believability that writers today create in their novels of historical fiction. Arthur and the people of his court, if they existed, (and it’s a very big IF!) had no place in factual history after the Norman conquest of England. Those Medieval tales are merely entertaining stories, with the Holy Grail quest perceived, perhaps, to encourage men to join the Holy Crusades, and maybe the Arthur story mirrors the fact that Richard I spent many years away on his own ‘quest’ and very little time in his kingdom of England.

I was intrigued, therefore, when I discovered that there were earlier tales of Arthur, not only pre-Norman but pre-Anglo-Saxon. These were the Welsh legends, stories and poems of a warlord who fought against the incoming Germanic tribes. To place an Arthur figure during the upheaval and chaos of fifth-century Britain made sense. The period is not known as The Dark Ages for nothing, for written evidence, the whys and wherefores, are few and far between – we are, very much, ‘in the dark’ for the years around 430-550 AD.

So this is when I set my Arthurian tale, it is fiction – let’s face the fact, ‘Arthur’ as a king did not exist. (Sorry!) But even if he didn’t exist the earlier stories about him are wonderfully exciting.

I researched, as well as I could, the detail of post-Roman Britain (no internet back in the 1970s/’80s!) using archaeological evidence to add into the many, many imagined fictional bits, which include the Welsh tales and writing of clerics such as Nennius, who mentioned twelve battles that Arthur (supposedly) fought.

My character of Arthur, therefore, is a fifth-century warlord, passionate about fighting for his rightful place as King, and fighting as hard to keep it. As passionate, is the love of his life, Gwenhwyfar, who in my tale remains loyal to her lord, Arthur, despite their many ups and downs, hopes, fears, achievements and disappointments. Despite their laughter and tears.

I wrote my Arthur as a real man – warts an’ all. He is not the Christian king of the Medieval tales, he is a soldier, leader of the cavalry, the Artoriani, a man trying to sort the chaos Rome left behind, a man living in a world of upheaval, where Christianity is still in a state of embryonic flux, where pagan beliefs are still very much to the fore, and a world where Britain is changing, through battle and peaceful settlement, from a Province of Rome’s authority into the emerging kingdoms of Englalond – Anglo-Saxon England.

But maybe, just maybe, my story as told in the Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy is the base for how the enduring legend of King Arthur really happened…

© Helen Hollick

Helen’s new, self-published, editions with beautiful covers designed by Cathy Helms of www.avalongraphics.org are, alas, only available outside of USA and Canada, where the same books are published by Sourcebooks Inc. (The new covers were offered – free – to Sourcebooks, but the offer was declined.)

ABOUT THE KINGMAKING (Book 1)

The Boy Who became a Man:

Who became a King:

Who became a Legend… KING ARTHUR

There is no Merlin, no sword in the stone, and no Lancelot.

Instead, the man who became our most enduring hero.

All knew the oath of allegiance:

‘To you, lord, I give my sword and shield, my heart and soul. To you, my Lord Pendragon, I give my life, to command as you will.’

This is the tale of Arthur made flesh and bone. Of the shaping of the man who became the legendary king; a man with dreams, ambitions and human flaws.

A man, a warlord, who united the collapsing province of post-Roman Britain,

who held the heart of the love of his life, Gwenhwyfar – and who emerged as the most enduring hero of all time.

A different telling of the later Medieval tales.

This is the story of King Arthur as it might have really happened…

“Helen Hollick has it all! She tells a great story and writes consistently readable books” Bernard Cornwell

“If only all historical fiction could be this good.” Historical Novels Review

“… Juggles a large cast of characters and a bloody, tangled plot with great skill. ” Publishers Weekly

“Hollick’s writing is one of the best I’ve come across – her descriptions are so vivid it seems as if there’s a movie screen in front of you, playing out the scenes.” Passages To The Past

“Hollick adds her own unique twists and turns to the familiar mythology” Booklist

“Uniquely compelling… bound to have a lasting and resounding impact on Arthurian literature.” Books Magazine

The Kingmaking: Book One

Pendragon’s Banner: Book Two

Shadow of the King: Book Three

(contains scenes of an adult nature)

BUY THE BOOKS:

THE PENDRAGON’s BANNER TRILOGY 

New Editions available worldwide except USA/Canada

https://mybook.to/KingArthurTrilogy

Available USA/Canada 

US TRILOGY: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C38TXN

CANADA TRILOGY: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B074C38TXN

ABOUT HELEN:

First accepted for traditional publication in 1993, Helen became a USA Today Bestseller with her historical novel, The Forever Queen (titled A Hollow Crown in the UK) with the sequel, Harold the King (US: I Am The Chosen King) being novels that explore the events that led to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Her Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy is a fifth-century version of the Arthurian legend, and she writes a nautical adventure/fantasy series, The Sea Witch Voyages. She has also branched out into the quick read novella, ‘Cosy Mystery’ genre with her Jan Christopher Murder Mysteries, set in the 1970s, with the first in the series, A Mirror Murder incorporating her, often hilarious, memories of working as a library assistant.

Her non-fiction books are Pirates: Truth and Tale sand Life of A Smuggler. She lives with her family in an eighteenth-century farmhouse in North Devon and occasionally gets time to write…

Website: https://helenhollick.net

All Helen’s books are available on Amazon: 

https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick

Subscribe to Helen’s Newsletter:  https://tinyletter.com/HelenHollick

Her Blog: https://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helen.hollick

Twitter: @HelenHollickhttps://twitter.com/HelenHollick

Follow Helen’s Celebration Tour https://www.helenhollick.net/

Water and Blood, by Rik Lonsdale

A Review

When disaster strikes, you want your family around you—don’t you?

When the collapse of an Antarctic ice sheet causes catastrophic, world-wide flooding and the disintegration of society, Lucy Marchand thinks she’s safe on her family’s smallholding in the west of England. But family tensions that could be ignored when they were buffered by a larger society begin to become evident when her older brother Ben flexes his way to a position of power within the family.

Set against a dystopic world all too easy to imagine—and already real in parts of the globe—Water and Blood is a psychological study of narcissism, manipulation, and the responses of a family trying to survive, and trying too to believe that one of their own has their best interests in heart.

The choices made by each individual in on the smallholding are distinct, and the reasons behind their decisions believable and layered. Each person has a point at which they either say ‘no more’ or embrace the philosophy of the leader. Many things influence that choice, especially when it becomes a question of your own life or death. As winter deepens and starvation threatens, does morality matter at all?  

I read Water and Blood in two days, and found it hard to put down. Well-paced, it asks some probing questions about how societies, even in microcosm, work. A solid debut novel, Water and Blood is out March 22. My thanks to the author for an advance review copy.

All purchase links at https://linktr.ee/riklonsdale

Ghostways: Two Journeys in Unquiet Places

Robert MacFarlane is among my top five favourite writers, fiction or non-fiction. The two pieces collected in Ghostways are very different: Ness, not-quite-a-play, not-quite-poetry, but to my mind meant to be read aloud, explores the depths and layers and secrets of Orford Ness, a shingle spit in Suffolk-a place I know as a birding site and nature reserve, but one that has another history. It is both haunting and disturbing, in the way T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets are. Its imagery will stay with me a long time.

Holloway, a prose exploration of a deep-worn, sometimes hidden path of Dorset is both a personal journey, a memoriam for fellow author Roger Deakin, and a wider discourse on landscape and meaning. ”Stretches of a path might carry memories of a person just as a person might of a path.” MacFarlane writes, and “paths run through people as surely as they run through places….” As a writer exploring the meaning of memory and place as filtered through grief in my current book, and as a person with a deep interest in how landscapes shape both individual and collective consciousness, MacFarlane (and his co-authors) as always, challenges and inspires me.

Storytellers: New Cover!

Like interior decoration and wardrobes, book covers can need updating. Bjørn Larssen has a new cover for his haunting novel Storytellers, and I’m pleased to show it to you today.

If you don’t tell your story, they will.

Iceland, 1920. Gunnar, a hermit blacksmith, dwells with his animals, darkness, and moonshine. The last thing he wants is an injured lodger, but his money may change Gunnar’s life. So might the stranger’s story – by ending it. That is, unless an unwanted marriage, God’s messengers’ sudden interest, an obnoxious elf, or his doctor’s guilt derail the narrative. Or will the demons from Gunnar’s past cut all the stories short?

Side effects of too much truth include death, but one man’s true story is another’s game of lies. With so many eager to write his final chapter, can Gunnar find his own happy ending?

My 2019 Review:

Set against Iceland’s harsh but beautiful landscape in the late 19th and  early 20th century, Bjørn Larssen’s debut novel Storytellers explores the multi-generational effect of the evasions, embellishments and outright lies told in a small village. The book begins slowly, almost lyrically, pulling the reader into what seems like situation borrowed from folktale: a reclusive blacksmith, Gunnar, rescues an injured stranger, Sigurd. In exchange for his care, Sigurd offers Gunnar a lot of money, and a story.

But as Sigurd’s story progresses, and the book moves between the past and the present, darker elements begin to appear. Gunnar’s reclusiveness hides his own secrets, and the unresolved stories of his past. As other characters are introduced and their lives interweave, it becomes clear that at the heart of this small village there are things untold, things left out of the stories, purposely re-imagined. Both individual and collective histories – and memories – cannot be trusted.

The book was reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, in both theme and mood. Both books deal with the unreliability of memory; both are largely melancholy books. And perhaps there is allegory in them both, too. Storytellers is a book to be read when there is time for contemplation, maybe of an evening with a glass of wine. It isn’t always the easiest read, but it’s not a book I’m going to forget easily, either.

Bjørn Larssen is an award-winning author of historical fiction and fantasy, dark and funny in varying proportions. His writing has been described as ‘dark,’ ‘literary,’ ‘cinematic,’ ‘hilarious,’ and ‘there were points where I was almost having to read through a small gap between my fingers.’

Bjørn has a Master of Science degree in mathematics, and has previously worked as a graphic designer, a model, a bartender, and a blacksmith (not all at the same time). He currently lives with his husband in Almere, which is unfortunately located in The Netherlands, rather than Iceland.

He has only met an elf once. So far.

Purchase links on Bjørn’s website.

Dead Winner, by Kevin G. Chapman

Rory McEntyre is a New York estate lawyer in a reputable firm: competent, hard-working, and single. One afternoon, his new clients turn out to be his old university friends Tom and Monica Williams, with an unusual request. They’ve won a share of one of New York’s mega-lotteries, and need his help to set up a trust to smokescreen their good fortune. Rory, who still pines for Monica but thinks that the better man won her heart and hand, obliges. But then Tom dies, apparently by his own hand, and the grieving and confused widow needs Rory’s help and support in every step of negotiating the labyrinth of complex investigations and revelations resulting from Tom’s suicide.


Dead Winner is a pacy, twisty comedy-thriller. At least, I hope it was supposed to be a comedy-thriller. That’s how I read it, and that’s how I’m reviewing it. Without spoilers, let me say I read it that way because the plot was obvious to me from the first chapters, and my enjoyment was in watching Rory getting deeper and deeper into something that wasn’t going to end well for him.


Side characters added to my chuckles. The executive assistant who was an Olympic judo contestant uses those skills in a scene reminiscent of Emma Peel in her leathers. The head of security who has ‘muscle envy’ on seeing the build of the (of course) probably-Russian hitman. Each character fit their role – harried and overworked detectives, ex-cop security, cold and efficient head of the investment firm for which Tom had worked – perfectly, instantly recognizable, taking their places in the unfolding events like the stock characters of a Christmas pantomime. As in a pantomime, there were many places when I wanted to figuratively shout ‘look behind you!’ at Rory – but then again, that would have spoiled the fun.


Recommended, but not – at least for me – to be taken seriously.

Reviewed for Coffee and Thorn Book Tours.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kevin Chapman is an attorney specializing in labor and employment law.  His passion (aside from playing tournament poker and rooting for his beloved New York Mets) is writing fiction. He recently completed the first five books in his multi-award winning Mike Stoneman Thriller series.

Kevin writes: “The process of writing crime thrillers involves hours of thinking about and talking about how to kill people. And how to get away with it. It also involves figuring out how my protagonist detectives might solve the case. But mostly it’s about planning out ingenious ways to murder people. My wife is a willing participant in this process (so she must trust me). My current book is more of a mystery, and a little bit of a tragic romance. But all the stories are about the characters. If you don’t care about them, then I’m not doing my job.”

TO CONTACT THE AUTHOR

Kevin G Chapman welcomes communication from his readers – including comments, ideas, disagreements and critiques. He can be contacted via any of the links below:

Author website: https://kevingchapman.com/

The Mike Stoneman Thriller Group on Facebook

Email him at kevin[at]kevingchapman[dot]com

He is also on Twitter (@KGChapman)