Tim Leach Books In Order

Publication Order of Sarmatian Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Tim Leach's Poems Books

Publication Order of's Children's Books

Tim Leach is a renowned English novelist, climber, chess dabbler, general purpose layabout, and whiskey drinker. He has written several successful standalone novels in his writing career. Leach was originally a resident of London. But now, he has moved out and lives in the North. He has studied creative writing from Warwick University and has even taught the same there. Before he took to writing, Leach used to work in bookshops in Greece and London. As a writer, he likes to write historical fiction and specializes in writing about unreliable source texts, ancient world, and crossovers between history and myth. Leach made his debut in the world of writing in 2013 with his first novel titled The Last King of Lydia. This novel was nominated for the 2013 Dylan Thomas Prize. Leach followed his successful debut with the 2014 novel called The King and the Slave. Leach’s most recent book is the 2018 novel called Smile of the Wolf.

In addition to writing novels, Leach is employed at Warwick University, where he is an Assistant Professor and teaches fiction under the university’s Writing Programme. Leach originally hails from Essex, but currently resides in Sheffield. In his spare times, he likes to indulge in sports activities like rock climbing. When Leach started writing historical fiction, he showed more interest in ancient Greece. But, in his latest novel, he has switched to tenth-century Iceland. The reason behind this switch as per Leach is that he wanted to take up a new challenge and did not want to get fixed to a particular place at the beginning of his career. After the release of his second book, Leach was searching for a new idea and he subsequently, found out about the Icelandic Sagas. The stories made him fall in love with them. After reading the Sagas, Leach found that ancient Iceland was described as a fascination frontier world filled with a unique culture. The stories contained a powerful depiction of feuds and friendships, set against a forbidding landscape. All this fascinated Leach very much and made him feel like ancient Iceland is his kind of world.

While researching for the novel, Leach visited Iceland through a road trip with his father. He said that it was important for him to get the sensory feel of the place as it plays an important role in the Sagas just like the people in it. During his trip, Leach found that Iceland still contains farms from the 10th century that still have the same names as they had at that time. This surprised him and increased his craze to know about Iceland to a much higher extent. Leach considers himself a great fan of unreliable text sources. He used the Sagas for his third novel and Herodotus for his first two novels. According to Leach, this mix of history & myth provides great opportunities for a novelist to be inventive and have fun at the same time.

The authors whose works have influenced Leach a lot include George Orwell, Ted Hughes, John Steinbeck, Graham Greene, Leo Tolstoy, Italo Calvino, etc. Now that he has become a noteworthy writer, Leach likes to advise the aspiring authors to never stop being patient, persistent, and curious. He always suggests the upcoming authors to write as many stories as they can and try to finish each one of them. This will help them to cultivate habits, routine, and discipline. Having said that, Leach is looking forward to maintaining his own routine and write many more interesting novels in the days to come. Until then, he expects his fans to keep reading his released books and enjoy.

The debut book written by author Tim Leach is entitled ‘The Last King of Lydia’. It was released in 2013 by the Atlantic Books publication. Leach has depicted the central characters in this book in the roles of Cyrus, Croesus, Solon, and several others. The novel opens by mentioning that a king faces defeat in the battle and stands in the middle of his dead soldiers. The conquerer, the Persian king Cyrus, orders his guards to make a pyre of all the dead and light fire to the bodies. Cyrus also signals his guards to prepare for burning alive the defeated king Croesus. As Croesus watches the burning flames, he has a flashback of his life in fast forward. Once, Croesus was the richest man of the entire ancient world. But now, he is left with nothing but misery and defeat.

Croesus remembers when he had asked the Athenian philosopher Solon, who, according to him was the world’s happiest man. Croesus used to believe that there was no other man happier than him. And when he looks at his current situation, he realizes that all his wealth and achievements could not save his dying eldest son from a battle wound. Nor could his riches make his dumb son speak, bring back the love of his wife, prevent his army from getting destroyed at the hands of Cyrus, and save his kingdom. Soon after, Croesus remembers the answer of the philosopher to his question in which he had said that a man’s true happiness can be measured only at the time of his death. And while he remembers all this, Cyrus’ guards prepare to burn him alive. This novel perfectly describes the meaning of being human.

The next book of Leach’s career is entitled ‘The King and the Slave’. It was also published by Atlantic Books in 2014. The primary characters of this novel include Cyrus, Cambyses, Croesus, etc. Initially, it is depicted that Cyrus’s army marches for another battle ten years after they conquered Babylon. Croesus, who was shown mercy and allowed to live, also accompanies Cyrus as his slave. Croesus doesn’t look young at all and lives on the mercy of Cyrus. The king’s son Cambyses also accompanies the army. Cambyses is the heir to Cyrus’s throne, but doesn’t possess any of his charisma of diplomacy. He seems to be full of rage and violence. Cyrus’s army loses the battle in a shocking turnaround and his army is killed. Cambyses claims the throne and is put under the guidance of Croesus to learn military strategies and war planning. But, Croesus refuses to be his guide saying that Cambyses is so filled with violence that he cannot be guided. Cambyses takes this as an insult and gathers the full force of his father to march to Africa for brutal and bloody vengeance.