Charles N Palmer is currently working on 'Now Is The Time Of Monsters', the third book in his alternate history/time travel fantasy trilogy, ‘Portals'. ‘The Half-Life Girl’, the second book, was published in June 2025. It resolved the questions thrown up by the disturbing final sentence of the previous book, ’Beyond The Shining Portals. ’Now Is The Time Of Monsters’ will be published in late 2025.
Charles also writes dark fairy tales for grown-ups and lighter tales for children.
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” ― Albert Einstein
Charles was brought up in Edinburgh and has lived, studied and worked in Edinburgh, Oxford, London, St George's, Grenada, W.I., Beijing and Cambridge. He now lives with his wife in Cambridge, UK. They have three children.
Charles N Palmer is currently working on 'Now Is The Time Of Monsters', the third book in his alternate history/time travel fantasy trilogy, ‘Portals'. ‘The Half-Life Girl’, the second book, was published in June 2025. It resolved the questions thrown up by the disturbing final sentence of the previous book, ’Beyond The Shining Portals. ’Now Is The Time Of Monsters’ will be published in late 2025.
Jack Brennan is scared. The bounty hunters are combing London for runaway factory apprentices, and it’s only a matter of time before they track him down.
Worse still, his sister has just sent a message. A drunken nobleman has stolen an amulet, a blood-red spider encased in amber, from the Maiden temple in which she serves. It is of the greatest...
Vanishing time, stolen futures, and a half-life girl's courage to defy her fate.
Elektra is no ordinary girl. She has a clock ticking inside her, counting down the days. As her life ebbs away, she finds herself at the heart of a titanic struggle—and the key to saving the cosmos may lie within her fractured soul.
Good morning from The Hoxton Holborn in central London. It’s the location for a dramatic event in Chapter 12 of ‘The Half-Life Girl’.
Central London is quite small. It’s a relatively short walk from Holborn to either Fleet Street, where my imaginary Temple Tavern stood or Billingsgate Market, next to my imaginary Turnmill Factory. Both of them appear in ‘Beyond the Shining Portals’
If you’ve read the first book in my Portals trilogy, you’ll remember that the protagonist, Jack, suffers a facial...
Good morning from Caffe Nero in Station Square, Cambridge. There’s an autumnal nip in the air. The trees in the square are still green, but it's an old, tired green which will soon give way to browns, yellows and reds.
The students have returned, and there’s a youthful buzz in the streets and cafes around the ancient university colleges.
I look down at the A4 pad, where I jot down notes in old-school style.
There’s still plenty to do before I complete ‘Now is the Time of Monsters’, but the end...
Good morning from Caffe Nero in Station Square, Cambridge, on a cool, autumnal morning. Summer blazed out in a final burst of glory on Friday. I think that’s it for this year. It’s been wonderful. I shall miss complaining about the heat.
Last Sunday’s trip to the coast passed without any major mishap. The Queen of the Road, confident as ever, drove faster along the twisting country roads than I was comfortable with.
“I drive very well now!”
And she does in her ‘Saddle the horses! We ride at...
