Colin Falconer Books In Order

Publication Order of Epic Historical Fiction / Adventure Books

Chronological Order of Epic Historical Fiction / Adventure Books

Publication Order of DI Charlie George Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of DI Madeleine Fox Books

Publication Order of Jerusalem Books

Publication Order of Naked Books

Publication Order of Opium Books

Publication Order of Magdalena Fuentes Books

Publication Order of William Shakespeare Detective Agency Books

Publication Order of 20th Century Stories Books

Colin Falconer is an English-born Australian writer that also writes as Mark D’Abranville and Colin Bowles. Never one to stick to one genre, Falconer’s writing includes historical and contemporary thrillers, and children’s books. As Colin Bowles, he has written columns, magazine article, radio and TV scripts, nonfiction books about language, and satirical fiction. Just like in his literary works, Falconer has worked in a variety of jobs that included being a script writer and folk singer for The Two Ronnies’, taxi driver, bar man, and journalist. The author was born in London before deciding to move to Australia, because of restlessness during his twenties. Most of his life before he became a writer was spent as a freelance journalist writing for television and radio and a number of venerable magazines in Australia and all over the world. Some of the magazines that he has written for include The Australian Women’s Weekly, Gourmet Traveler, Ansett Inflight Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Qantas Magazine, The Bulletin, Cosmopolitan, Playboy, and The Australian. Even as he worked in freelance journalism, he was busy writing his novels. Since 1990, he has published over 40 novels that have been translated into over 23 languages across the world.

Colin Falconer’s inspiration to become a writer was conceived while he was in primary school. He knew he was destined for a writing career when he read Jules Verne’s Michael Strogoff aged about seven years old. He devoured the book hungrily and by the end of the afternoon, he knew there was nothing he loved more than a good story. His Aunt Ivy can take most of the credit for developing the love of books in the young and impressionable Bowles. Every week, she used to travel down to rural Essex from London, and brought along with her a collection of the finest illustrated English classics that Falconer would read voraciously. He always liked the illustrated cartoon version of the books, which he kept as they developed in him the thirst for excellent stories on canvas. The comics also stirred in him a nascent imagination and a love for adventure and travel, which has informed almost all of his literary works that focus on travel and historical and modern fiction. The only way he could visit some of the fantastic places that he read about, was to visit and recreate as many of them as he could, through his international travel chronicles. By the time he turned eight he had read most of the classics such as Homers Odyssey, most of William Wilkie Collins, and Alexandre Dumas. He had also read Ivanhoe, The Black Tulip, The Moonstone, Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and Moby Dick.

Colin Falconer’s novels are drawn from his many experiences traveling all over the world. He has written about his experiences of countries such as Bangkok, India, Burma, and Laos that he documents in his very first novel Venom. He has also traveled to England, Australia, Africa, and Western Europe among many others. Some of his novels are more autobiographical in nature with his fictional and non-fictional autobiographical novels about his failed marriage that he wrote with Elizabeth Best garnering much controversy and popularity. Most of his works involve a lot of research, given that he is an author that esteems authenticity. In this regard, he has traveled to Pamplona for the annual Bull Run, walked a 900 kilometer challenge in Camino, gone cage shark diving in South Africa, pursued black witches and tornadoes across Oklahoma, and got embroiled in a riot in La Paz where he was cycling down the Death Road. Even as he likes writing about his travels, historical, modern and ancient fiction, and young adult books are his most popular works. As for the young adult novels, he wrote them for his kids who could not read his adult works because of their age.

Aztec: A Novel of the Mexican Conquest documents the controversial and triumphant life of Malinali an Aztec woman whose story is the most enduring of legends in Mexican folklore. Born the daughter of a lord of her tribe, she is sold to the Maya as a slave, which eventually results in her meeting the Great Hernan Cortes, the Spanish Conquistador. To many of the Maya tribesmen, Cortes with his pale skin and flowing beard was a representation of the god, the Feathered Serpent. The prophets had foretold his coming, and that it would result in the end of the Aztec Empire. Given that her father was one of the prophets, Malinali knew that to survive she needed to side with the invaders and their leader the Feathered Serpent. This legend led to Malinali being honored as the symbolic mother of the mixed race nation, and reviled as a traitor to her own people by the native Mexicans. The novel tells the story of the Spanish conquistadors’ conquest of Mexico that opened up the American hinterland. In colorful descriptive detail, Colin Falconer writes of the brilliance of the Aztec Empire through the inimitable Malinali. He casts Malinali as Cortes’s consort and translator, who survived against all odds to take her place in the annals of history.

Harem by Colin Falconer provides a glimpse into the world of violence, sensuality, and intrigue of the Ottoman Empire’s Harems. It tells the story Sultan Suleyman’s harem particularly the story of his three wives Hurrem, the Tartar, a girl sold into slavery to the Ottomans, Julia the daughter of an Italian lord that was kidnapped by the Ottomans trying to sneak out of Venice, and Gulbehar the mother to the Sultan’s heir and his favorite wife. With a harem full of beautiful pampered women, it is the nerve center of Constantinople; hence, many plots ate hatched therein. Hurrem is the most ruthless of the women with a thirst for power not only over the harem, but also over Suleyman himself. Falconer documents her clever and manipulative schemes to bring down her rivals and get into the good graces of the Sultan. Her schemes give her access to the most powerful instrument of power in the empire. Hurrem’s eventually manages to make Sultan obsessed with her, which ultimately results in him alienating his sons, his allies, and advisors, which eventually ends causes the downfall of his dynasty.

2 Responses to “Colin Falconer”

1. Katherine Smith: 3 years ago

   The book ‘Silk Road’ is it a stand alone book or part of a series?

   Reply
   • Graeme: 3 years ago

     As listed above it is part of the Epic Historical Fiction series.

     Reply