A Good Deliverance

Toby Clements was inspired to write the Kingmaker series having first become obsessed by the Wars of the Roses after a school trip to Tewkesbury Abbey, on the steps of which the Lancastrian claim to the English throne was extinguished in a welter of blood in 1471. Since then he has read everything he can get his hands on and spent long weekends at re-enactment fairs. He has learned to use the longbow and how to fight with the poll axe, how to start a fire with a flint and steel and a shred of baked linen. He has even helped tan a piece of leather (a disgusting experience involving lots of urine and dog faeces). Little by little he became less interested in the dealings of the high and mighty, however colourful and amazing they might have been, and more fascinated by the common folk of the 15th Century: how they lived, loved, fought and died. How tough they were, how resourceful, resilient and clever. As much as anything this series is a hymn to them. He lives in London with his wife and three children.

Matt Addis is a highly regarded audiobook narrator, and has voiced a wealth of work for Audible, Penguin Random House, Naxos, Oxford University Press, Hachette, Hodder & Stoughton, Bloomsbury and the Royal National Institute of Blind People. He is a multiple AudioFile EarPhones award winner and was nominated by Audible as one of 12 finalists for Audiobook of the Year.