Chris's early short stories appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Dark Moon Digest and American Nightmare. His first novel under his own name was A Brother's Oath; the first book in the Hengest and Horsa Trilogy. He also writes pulp adventure under the pseudonym P. J. Thorndyke. His major influences are the ghost stories of M. R. James, the pulp fiction of Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft and just about any author of historical fiction from Bernard Cornwell to Sharon Penman.