The Bruegel Boy

Announcing my new novel, to be published 6th November 2025

I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to say that my new novel, The Bruegel Boy, will be published by Holland House Books on 6th November 2025.

As we move towards and through publication, I’ll be talking more about the publishing process here on Substack; for now, here are the details which have just been announced.

In the summer of 1566 an inferno of political rebellion and image-smashing, the Beeldenstorm, swept across Flanders and Holland; young Gillis Vervloet, model and muse to artist Pieter Bruegel, almost didn’t survive.

More than sixty years later, in the Saarland forest, Gil wants only to enter the monastery of St Bartolomëus and live out his days in peace, but first he must find their long-lost statue of St Michael.

And to prove he is not a heretic, Gil must also account for his life with Bruegel, who painted a tense path through the artistic riches, intellectual ferment and explosive religious politics of the Low Countries.

As he writes of his passionate vocation for the priesthood and impossible love for Dorothea, his outlaw brother Roeland and radical priest-mentor Pater Paulus, Gil’s hard-won understanding must show him where to seek St Michael, and save himself from the Inquisition.

The Bruegel Boy is a profound exploration of love, brotherhood, vocation and the power of art to transform lives but also divide and even destroy them.

To read an extract click through to my website.

To pre-order, click through to Holland House Books.