Biography
My name is Gary Corken and I write historical fiction about ordinary people caught in the machinery of two wars.
I grew up with a strong connection to Belfast and to military history. My family background and service in a Territorial Army parachute regiment shaped both the subjects I write about and the way I approach them.
The Sons of No Country trilogy follows three men through the Boer War of 1899 to 1902 and the Western Front of 1914 to 1918. The same battles are fought in more than one of the books, from different sides. An Irish soldier and a Boer boy were on opposite sides of the same ridge at Colenso in December 1899. They didn't know it at the time. By 1901 they would meet in the dark outside a British blockhouse.
I live near Dartmoor in Devon. I've just launched a podcast — Sons of No Country: The History Behind the Novels — on Spotify, starting with the Battle of Colenso.