David Bramhall is the author of the five-volume "Greatest Cape" series, a decidedly off-the-wall saga set in a strange little town by the sea, inhabited by
some very eccentric characters. The first, The Black Joke, appeared in 2012 and the series continued with one new novel a year until with the fifth, Patience & the Pyrate, it ended - for the time being, anyway!
The three Kitty novels followed, rather more suitable for children and featuring an appealing young lady with a knack for getting into scrapes - and a forthright manner of getting herself out of them. The Honeyplot is a stand-alone novel with a strong musical content reflecting the author's own career, while Aurelia is a collection of
short ghost stories, mostly involving children - and one of them true!
A former musician and teacher, David is something of an authority on the training of children's choirs. He founded and directed the award-winning Harmony Girls' Choir, and his book Training Your Young Choir sells slowly but steadily all over the world, as do two classroom text books on music.
In 2012 he turned his attention to story-writing. He started The Black Joke in French Guyana, wrote most of it in Brazil, and finished it on a container ship across the Atlantic to Rotterdam. He says yes, thank you, he had a lovely time and that's all he wants to say except that Fenestra was quite annoying even while he was writing her. And in case anyone wonders, Urethra Grubb is definitely based on a real person ... but it's a secret.
The Bernadette and Rio Sagrado were written on the Isle of Whithorn in south-west Scotland. It's not actually an island at all, although it feels like it. Very few people, lots of sheep, and constantly changing weather ... one day windy, the next day raining, the next rainy and windy ... you get the idea. Excellent for writing; the temptation to get up and go for a walk is so easy to resist!
Turnstone was written in a cottage in North Devon, just for a change. Very few people, lots of sheep, and constantly changing weather ... one day windy, the next day ... need we go on? Patience and the Pyrate was written in deepest Cardiganshire (which is pretty deep, trust us) and the weather was actually rather nice.
David is also a bit of a poet, though he prefers to call himself a "versifier" as he doesn't take it very seriously. All the same, his poem "Snape Maltings, the concert hall late at night" won the 2020 King Lear Prize for Poetry. Click here to listen to Gyles Brandreth reciting the poem.
David lives in the East of England with his wife, also a musician, and plays with historic steam locomotives in his spare time.
The pictures that adorn this website and the covers of some of the books are paintings by the American artist Alfred Thompson Bricher (1837 - 1908). He specialised in maritime or coastal subjects on the East Coast of New England and Canada.