Born in Bradford Upon Avon to nomadic Welsh school teachers; Jemahl was brought up in a West Wales mining village during the 70s and 80s. He has pursued a lifelong  passion for History, inspired by his grandfather’s stories and legends. Jemahl was educated in Christ College Brecon, St Mary’s University College (Strawberry Hill), and U.W.E. Bristol.

 

Jemahl graduated with an MA in History, focussing on poetry and propaganda during the Wars of the Roses, and then worked for IBM in London. At the turn of  the millennium, he left the grind of the office and spent a couple of years travelling and working abroad. After time spent in India, Australia, and South East Asia he returned to Britain and took up a teaching post in West London in 2005. He left his role as Head of Year in the Heathland School in 2010, and returned to Wales citing hiraeth.

 

His first novel, The Last Roundhead, came out in August 2015 and was nominated by Netgalley as one of the UK’s top ten books that month, and received great reviews in The Times and from the Historical Novel Society. The follow up, This Deceitful Light, was published in September 2017 and is described by the Oliver Cromwell Society as ‘a real pager turner’ with language that ‘fizzes with ribaldry and bawdiness’. Jemahl is a member of the Historical Writers Association, and his books have been compared to the parodies by Robert Nye, Rose Tremain, and the Flashman series.

 

Jemahl now spends his time teaching, reading history, listening to the Delta Blues, walking his border collie, and whining on Twitter about the government. You can follow him on twitter @Temulkar

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The Last Roundhead is the first in his series of books to explore the momentous events of the English Civil War, and will be published by Holland House Books in August 2015.