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Paul Bryers (also writing as Seth Hunter)

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Paul Bryers, has written a number of contemporary novels including Hollow Target which won arts council Best First Novel and In a Pig's Ear named in Guardian five best novels of year. Other titles include The Used Women's Book Club, The Prayer of the Bone, The Adultery Department and Coming First. Paul currently teaches an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Winchester and is a member of The Society of Authors, PEN, and Children's Writers and Illustrators in South London (CWISL).

Writing as Seth Hunter, Paul is the author of six maritime adventures set in the Napoleonic Wars, featuring Nathan Peake. The sixth and final Nathan Peake title was published in 2013 by Headline.
Paul also writes fiction for children and young adults, including the highly-acclaimed Mysteries of the Septagram trilogy: Kobal, Avatar and Abyss. Paul's latest YA novel Spooked was published in 2013 by Hodder Children's Books.

Selected praise:

for the Nathan Peake series:

'A more natural storyteller’s eye than Patrick O’Brian… well wrought and deftly told’
Sunday Telegraph
‘This book has it all … will be welcomed by lovers of historical naval fiction’
Daily Mail

‘The action is handled with complete assurance and all matters nautical carry the requisite salty whiff of authenticity… Hunter keeps the plot continually on the boil’
Yorkshire Evening Post
‘I’m already looking forward to the next instalment.  A highly compelling read.’
Historical Novels Review

'A compelling read, imaginative, knowledgeable, fast-moving... full of twists and turns'
Naval Review

'will exceed expectations of lovers of historical fiction. Anyone who appreciates excellent prose, witty anecdotes, complex action, intertwining plots, and all-round great writing will anxiously await the next installment' ForeWord Reviews

'Hunter delivers another slick nautical adventure in the Patrick O'Brian tradition... The rousing naval battles, twisty plot, and muscular prose lift Hunter's nautical yarn a few notches above the competition'
Publishers Weekly


for
The Used Women’s Book Club:
'A satire on contemporary sexual mores and a guided tour to the city’s murderous past tied by literary threads and haunted by ghosts…. Bryers writes with freshness, wit and a lively appreciation of a city’s dark history.'
Chris Petit, The Guardian
' Bryers gives his smart sex comedy a black but hopeful heart and a sharp sense of what it’s like to live in contemporary London…. Witty, acerbic, 99.9 per cent excellent.'
Literary Review.           

for The Prayer of the Bone
"An elegant and unearthly literary mystery… told lyrically by Bryers, a careful stylist who selects even the simplest words with the discriminating eye of a shore walker gathering small, smooth stones washed up from the sea."  
New York Times

"Stylish, intricate…Bryers’s novel has the same atmospheric intensity as Snow Falling on Cedars, replacing David Guterson’s Amero-Japanese culture clash with 350 years of suspicion between colonised and English colonisers”
Sunday Times

for In A Pig’s Ear
"Bubbling with rare charms and full of spell-binding irony, In A Pig’s Ear, foams away like a magic potion - potent, effervescent, intoxicating.  Its heady cocktail of legends past and modern grotesques forms a rapturous tale, rich in symbolism, disturbing in humour."
TLS


for Coming First and The Adultery Department
‘A rollicking Metropolitan comedy of manners... genuinely laugh-aloud funny’
Independent on Sunday
 
Absorbing and well-written… Bryers may well be the best of his type now operating’
Nick Hornby, Sun Times
 
‘A literate, sympathetic modern comedy and a satisfyingly accurate picture of these sinning times’
GQ

‘Shrewd satirical observation and a good deal of excellent slapstick,’
Observer 
‘A very funny novel... full of jokes and consistently enjoyable’
Daily Telegraph 

‘As a storyteller Bryers is superb’
Time Out

Paul is on Twitter as @paulbryers and you can read more on www.paulbryers.com and www.nathanpeake.com.
Books by Paul Bryers:
For children:
Mysteries of the Septagram Trilogy:
Kobal

Avatar

Abyss


For adults:
Hollow Target
In a Pig's Ear
The Used Women's Book Club
The Prayer of the Bone
The Adultery Department
Coming First

For young adults:
Spooked: The Haunting of Kit Connelly



Writing for adults (as Seth Hunter):
Nathan Peake series:
The Time of Terror
The Tide of War

The Price of Glory

The Winds of Folly

The Flag of Freedom

The Spoils of Conquest

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