It is time, readers, for another author to open their heart to you and confess their sins. This week Martin Owton, author of Exile, is here to beg for your forgiveness. And he’s even included a video of himself reading from his book.

  • I was fired from my own heavy rock band for not being good enough

  • I once staged a public hanging in the Red Lion Shopping Centre, Cambridge for rag week; I was the victim.

 

  • I appeared 4 times on TV quiz show 15:1 and won 2 games.

 

  • When I was eleven I wrote a 200 page story in 2 weeks for a class project.

 

  • I used to play good class club cricket.

 

  • I part-authored, and acted in, a comic play that was staged at the Edinburgh Fringe. It required me to strip on stage down to Union flag shorts.

 

  • I’m still a fairly decent potter. My aunt was a professional potter who trained me and I helped her in school holidays. The real craft is in the decoration.

 

  • I have a cochlear implant. When it is disconnected I have no hearing at all.

 

  • I write really slowly, maybe a couple of hundred words a day. It takes me years to finish a book.

 

So those are his sins. Is he forgiven his heresy? If you’re still on the fence, why not check out his video reading from Exile.

 

‘The Exile of Darien’ is a fast-moving tightly-plotted fantasy adventure story with a strong thread of romance

Aron of Darien, raised in exile after his homeland is conquered by a treacherous warlord, makes his way in the world on the strength of his wits and skill with a sword. Both are sorely tested when he is impressed into the service of the Earl of Nandor to rescue his heir from captivity in the fortress of Sarazan. The rescue goes awry. Aron and his companions are betrayed and must flee for their lives. Pursued by steel and magic, they find new friends and old enemies on the road that leads, after many turns, to the city of the High King. There Aron must face his father’s murderer before risking everything in a fight to the death with the deadliest swordsman in the kingdom.