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Twelve reasons to read THE OLD DRAGON’S HEAD 

1. Set in the year 1400, The Old Dragon’s Head is a historical adventure and secret history of China’s coming of age. In 1205, China had suffered the ignominy of a Mongol invasion, and it wasn’t until 1368 that the founder of the Ming Dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor, expelled them.
2. The novel’s young protagonist is Bolin, and the story follows his coming of age, which mirrors China’s struggle to find a new identity and shrug off the bad karma that invited the Mongol invasion in the first place.
3. The Old Dragon’s Head – or Laolongtou in Chinese – is not just an intriguing title, it’s a real place on the far eastern end of the Great Wall of China, where the wall meets the sea for the only time. That provides the dramatic setting for the novel.
4. In 1380, the Hongwu Emperor built a great fortress at the Laolongtou to defend China’s northern borders from the now-defeated Mongols. The main gate in the fortress – which exists to this day – is the formidable Zengdong Gate, above which was inscribed the enigmatic saying: “The First Pass Under Heaven.”
5. You’ll get to know more about the Bagua – the eight trigrams of Taoist cosmology that supposedly represent the fundamental principles of reality. These appear in the book of portents, the I Ching.
6. Bolin is a young man working as an apprentice on the Great Wall. When he experiences visions and strange dreams, he tries to find out what they mean. From then on, his life takes off and, like all reluctant heroes, he persistently refuses to follow his destiny until… it catches up with him and he can no longer avoid it.
7. Each chapter in the novel starts with a saying from different Chinese philosophers and thinkers, such as Confucius, Mencius, Lao Tzu, and others. These highlight the unusual and enigmatic Chinese way of thinking. In some ways, the novel is a homage to Chinese thought, literature, and wisdom.
8. One of them is the ancient Chinese saying – ‘May you live in interesting times.’ Read The Old Dragon’s Head to find out if it’s a blessing, or a curse.
9. Belief in demons, ghosts and spirits… Feng-shui, Almanacs and Acupuncture… the novel explores the incredibly superstitious mind-set of the Chinese in the year 1400.
10. You’ll learn that the Zhongguo – meaning Middle Kingdom – is the Chinese name for China.
11. The book is a mix of Chinese history, crime, fantasy, and thriller all with a supernatural twist. And don’t forget smatterings of Chinese poetry and philosophy or that the novel highlights how different the Chinese criminal justice system is to the western model.
12. Find out what Yin-Yang eyes are and more about the Yin-Yang symbol. You’ll also encounter the Buddhist idea of the transmigration of souls, and don’t forget the incredible cosmic instruction manual conceived by mandarins from the Ming Dynasty – The Great Ming Code.

Meet the Author:

JUSTIN NEWLAND’s novels represent an innovative blend of genres from historical fiction and crime, to supernatural thrillers and mystery. His stories deal with the themes of war, religion, and evolution and speculate on the human’s spiritual place in the universe.

Undeterred by the award of a Doctorate in Mathematics from Imperial College, London, he found his way to the creative keyboard and conceived his debut novel, The Genes of Isis (Matador, 2018), an epic fantasy set under Ancient Egyptian skies.

Next came the historical fantasy, The Old Dragon’s Head (Matador, 2018), set in Ming Dynasty China in the shadows of the Great Wall.

His next historical fantasy, The Coronation (Matador, 2019), speculates on the genesis of the most important event in the modern world – the Industrial Revolution.

His fourth, The Abdication (Matador, 2021), is a supernatural thriller in which a young woman confronts her faith in a higher purpose and what it means to abdicate that faith.

His work in progress is a two-book series, The Island of Angels, set in Elizabethan England, and is an epic tale of England’s coming of age. The first novel, The Mark of the Salamander, travels with Sir Francis Drake across the wide open seas of discovery from 1577-1580 and is due to be published in September 2023. The second, The Midnight of Eights, culminates in the repulse of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

He regularly gives talks to historical associations and libraries and enjoys giving radio interviews and making podcasts. Born three days before the end of 1953, he lives with his partner in plain sight of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England.

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