The Gallows Pole is a historical novel set in 18th century Yorkshire. It focuses on the true story of the Cragg Vale Coiners, a ragtag bunch of local men under the leadership of '“King” David Hartley who scrape a living together by “clipping” coins to melt down and produce new forgeries. The book is set on the cusp of industrialisation, in the dying days of an era when a charismatic man could hold effective dominion over a valley, in a relatively closed community maintaining a form of isolation from the rules and laws of the land. The exciseman William Deighton enters as an outsider, vowing to take down Hartley and his hugely successful enterprise. As the web closes in on the Coiners, in the background cotton mills are rising, turnpikes slicing their way through the countryside, and a way of life being lost to history.

The Land in Winter takes place in a remote community in the West Country of England during the famously harsh winter of 1962-63 (known as the ‘Big Freeze’). It focuses on two couples, neighbours separated by a field. Eric Parry is a local doctor, well-established in the community and married to Irene. They’re ostensibly a picture-perfect upper middle class couple, hosting dinner parties and very much conscious of their elevated status in their small community. The farm nearby has recently been bought by Bill Simmons, on something of a whim. He lives there with his relatively modern young wife Rita, who is adapting from her previous party life in the bars and clubs of Bristol. While Bill is also not exactly poor, he’s from an immigrant family (though not obviously) and the status of ‘farmer’ in the 1960s still very much carried an implication of lower social status than the Parrys. While Eric and Bill struggle to connect (or even really contemplate that they would), their wives are both pregnant and begin to form an unlikely bond.