MJ Porter

Meddi, the seeress of the Eorlingas When I was thinking about writing this trilogy, set in the undocumented and little-understood ‘true’ Dark Ages, it was Meddi’s character that came to me most forcefully. I had thought she appeared pretty fully formed, but I’ve actually found a very early attempt which doesn’t mention her (it was only about 250 words, admittedly). After that, she evidently developed quite quickly in my mind. Of the two main points of view characters, Meddi a

2025 has been a challenging reading year for me. I’ve failed to hit my reading target of 100 books (although I’m not worried about that because hey, it’s just a bit of fun to even set a target), and there have been a few months where I barely read anything at all because ‘life’ got in the way. I’ve also noticed this year that my reading preferences have changed, moving even more towards mysteries and away from my writing genre of action and adventure historical fiction. I hav

Here are 4 authors that have inspired me on my writing journey

The special 5th birthday edition of The Last King, available now

An introduction to the Dark Age Chronicles (with some non-fiction suggestions)

Listen to me summarise The Eagle of Mercia Chronicles with only 20 seconds per book #histfic #newrelease #ShieldOfMercia

Shield of Mercia is getting a lot of fab early reviews. It's now available for you to read too #histfic #newrelease #ShieldOfMercia

Letter writing in the eleventh century: how I recreated Lady Estrid's connections with her vast family #histfic

With the upcoming release of Warriors of Iron, here are some of the sources I used while writing the trilogy

The inspiration behind The Secret Sauce, the third book in The Erdington Mysteries

With the release of The Secret Sauce, I'm sharing a post about how I recreated the setting for The Custard Corpses, my first foray into historical mysteries

Watch me write what would become Men of Iron, the first book in the Dark Age Chronicles

A brief introduction to Lady Elfrida, Saxon England's first acknowledged and recorded queen(contains spoilers)

The Earl of Mercia's Father and its (very long) book journey

Not one, but two cover reveals. Meet Shield of Mercia and The Secret Sauce, two very different projects, two fab covers

On this day in history, 2nd August 924: the 1101st anniversary of the death of Ælfweard, the short-reigned king of Wessex

On this day in history, the death of King Edward (the Elder), 17th July 924

With the upcoming release of Warriors of Iron, here are some of the sources I used while writing the trilogy

I write about the Saxon kingdom of Mercia a lot. I thought it had been entirely unintentional until now. But has it? I grew up in an area...

A visit to Malmesbury and the Athelstan 1100 Celebrations