Bad Blood

Ireland, 1590s. Loyalty is bought with blood. Betrayal runs in the family.

Eunan Maguire was never meant to live.

Despised by his parents, taken hostage to secure his father’s loyalty, and raised among mercenary killers, he survives by enduring what should have destroyed him.

When English soldiers raze his village and leave his family dead, Eunan escapes. But guilt follows him. So does the past.

He is taken in by Seamus MacSheehy, a hardened Galloglass captain who offers him more than protection. He offers him a future. A claim to his father’s title. A path into the violent struggle tearing the Maguire clan apart.

But power in Fermanagh is not taken. It is granted, shaped, and controlled.

As Eunan is drawn deeper into clan politics, shifting alliances, and quiet betrayals, he begins to realise that every step forward has already been set in motion. Seamus is not simply guiding him, he is positioning him.

And the truth behind Eunan’s birth, his family, and his survival is far more dangerous than any English army.

By the time Eunan understands what he is becoming, it may already be too late to choose otherwise.

Because in a land ruled by blood, the past does not stay buried. It decides who lives, who rules… and who is sacrificed next.

Bad Blood is the first book in the Exiles series—a brutal and character-driven work of Irish historical fiction set during the Elizabethan wars, where loyalty is fragile, power is inherited through violence, and every victory carries a cost that has yet to be paid.