Books by Simon Cleary

When Brigadier James Phelan returns from Afghanistan with the body of a young soldier killed under his command, he is traumatised by the tragedy. An encounter with young Sydney tattoo artist Kira leaves him with a permanent tribute to the soldier, but it is a meeting that will change the course of his life. What he isn't expecting is a campaign of retribution from the soldiers who blame him for the ambush and threaten his career. With his marriage also on the brink, his life spirals out of control. Years later, Phelan is surprised when Kira re-enters his life seeking refuge from her own troubles and with a young son in tow. She finds a way to help him make peace with his past, but she is still on the run from her own. The War Artist is a timely and compelling novel about the legacy of war, the power of art and the possibility of redemption.

In a post-truth age where anything is believable and the best way to survive is to contradict everything and believe in nothing, the everyday person can fail to find their place in it all, as every living moment is documented, polished up and presented for consumption by the all-seeing gaze of our so-called "friends" where it is judged and rated, then left to fall away down the wall, existing only on a server in Colorado, and a few failing neurons sparking in the darkness. Throw a light on that darkness! Look at everything in your lives! Examine the everyday! In this collection, Simon Cleary, a pretentious writer who failed at being "deep" turns his hand to documenting the strangeness of being a human in this society, trying to get jobs, attend social events and get along with fellow man... sometimes with, to use the parlance of today, "sub-optimal results..."

Chedworth is one of the few Roman villas in Britain whose remains are open to the public, and this book seeks to explain what these remains mean. The fourth century in Britain was a 'golden age' and at the time the Cotswolds were the richest area of Roman Britain.