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Roland Clarke

Goodreads Author

Born

in Ardingly, The United Kingdom

Website

http://rolandclarke.com/

Twitter

rrclarke53

Genre

Fantasy, Mystery, Historical Fiction

Influences

J R R Tolkien and Roger Woddis

Member Since

May 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/goodreadscomroland_clarke

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I am a retired equestrian journalist and photographer, who used to be a regular contributor of articles and photos to Eventing Magazine and other equestrian media including eQuest, Riding, and Carriage Driving. Sadly Multiple Sclerosis clipped my wings and I was unable to meet deadlines so easily and found it increasingly hard to get to equestrian events.

Once retired I was unable to abandon the scribbling and so I found time to complete my first novel – to be re-published – and Spiral of Hooves was of course set against the world of eventing. It took 12 years to complete mainly due to the rewrites because of the comments people made, often suggesting I change characters or the setting or the period it was set it, and so on. Thanks to the su I am a retired equestrian journalist and photographer, who used to be a regular contributor of articles and photos to Eventing Magazine and other equestrian media including eQuest, Riding, and Carriage Driving. Sadly Multiple Sclerosis clipped my wings and I was unable to meet deadlines so easily and found it increasingly hard to get to equestrian events.

Once retired I was unable to abandon the scribbling and so I found time to complete my first novel – to be re-published – and Spiral of Hooves was of course set against the world of eventing. It took 12 years to complete mainly due to the rewrites because of the comments people made, often suggesting I change characters or the setting or the period it was set it, and so on. Thanks to the support of my wife Juanita, I settled on a storyline and then completed a draft that I was happy with.

Published on December 9th 2013, the novel is is re-released in a revised 2nd edition on August 7th.

My current Work In Progress is Book 1 of my post-apocalyptic Gossamer Flames saga - Storms Compass. I am also writing “Fates Maelstrom”, a psychological mystery set in Snowdonia, which is the first of another series.

My wife Juanita and I moved to Boise, Idaho having lived in Harlech, Wales. Our two cats Willow & Kefira, moved down the road, but we made the trip by sea and road to Boise with our two dogs, Quetzal & Treeky.

Now we are with Juanita's extensive family in Idaho. Our beloved Whisper’s ashes are on the mantle alongside Juanita’s daughter Carrie’s and those of my old cat Oliver. Our lives are captured on our website at The Duskweald which tells more about our worlds.

I was educated at Eton, Rendcomb and then for two years at Bransons College in Quebec, Canada. After a brief stint as a sub-editor on The Field, I enrolled in a journalism course at Humber College in Toronto but dropped out and returned to England again, setting up an equestrian photographic business. I’ve since spent time marketing organic fruit & vegetables, then making short films and videos before becoming an equestrian journalist and eventually retiring.

And I usually call myself The Silver Scribbler…. ...more

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Combine Editions
Roland Clarke’s books

Average rating: 4.25 · 52 ratings · 31 reviews · 4 distinct works

	Grouse Feathers by Burton L. Spiller, Roland Clarke (Goodreads Author) (Illustrator) 4.44 avg rating — 70 ratings — published 1935 — 31 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Voyagers: The Third Ghost by Yvonne Ventresca (Goodreads Author), Sherry Ellis (Goodreads Author), Bish Denham (Goodreads Author) 4.61 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 2020 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Spiral of Hooves 3.71 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 2013 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mad Maud's Epentheticon by Peter Christian, Roland Clarke (Goodreads Author) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

702 posts
Roland Clarke's Blog

Freedom Flights: Episode 44. Trying Times. Part 3. Making Headlines.

Episode 44 of Freedom Flights is set in April 2025 and has been released in multiple parts, as I created them. Some events foreshadowed in this episode will take a few months to play out, while others may be resolved in the next episode.

I will continue trying to foreshadow future incidents without making my characters react as if they know what will happen later in 2025… although they might fe

Roland is Currently Reading

Roland Clarke is currently reading

The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine

by Serhii Plokhy

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Oct 04, 2022 09:03PM

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The Fake Date

by Lynda Stacey (Goodreads Author)

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Dec 03, 2019 04:50PM

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The Forest for the Trees

by Betsy Lerner

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Aug 14, 2019 02:35PM

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Roland’s Recent Updates

Roland Clarke wrote a new blog post Freedom Flights: Episode 44. Trying Times. Part 3. Making Headlines. Episode 44 of Freedom Flights is set in April 2025 and has been released in multiple parts, as I created them. Some events foreshadowed in this episo Read more of this blog post »
Nov 22, 2025 02:31AM · like
Roland Clarke has read Ninth Step Station: The Complete Season 1 (Ninth Step Station #1.1-1.10) by Malka Ann Older (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Sep 20, 2024 12:56PM · like

More of Roland's books…

Roland’s Quotes

“Tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”
― Aeschylus

160 likes

“Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.”
― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

tags: cowardice, doubt, resolve, self-doubt

1810 likes

“The nights were blinding cold and casket black and the long reach of the morning had a terrible silence to it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

45 likes

“He got up and walked out to the road. The black shape of it running from dark to dark. Then the distant low rumble. Not thunder. You could feel it under your feet. A sound without cognate and so without description. Something imponderable shifting out there in the dark. The earth itself contracting with the cold. It did not come again. What time of year? What age the child? He walked out into the road and stood. The silence. The salitter drying from the earth. The mudstained shapes of flooded cities burned to the waterline. At a crossroads a ground set with dolmen stones where the spoken bones of oracles lay moldering. No sound but the wind. What will you say? A living man spoke these lines? He sharpened a quill with his small pen knife to scribe these things in sloe or lampblack? At some reckonable and entabled moment? He is coming to steal my eyes. To seal my mouth with dirt.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

30 likes

“What is it?
Nothing. I had a bad dream.
What did you dream about?
Nothing.
Are you okay?
No.
He put his arms around him and held him. It's okay, he said.
I was crying. But you didnt wake up.
I'm sorry. I was just so tired.
I meant in the dream.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road