It’s Here: The Mijas Cowboy Is Published

After months of writing, editing, rewriting, proofing, formatting, cover designing and more cups of tea than I care to count, The Mijas Cowboy is published today — October 13th 2026. Dylan Thomas’s birthday. That feels right.

I started writing this book at a table in Cardiff Bay earlier this year. Four old men sat down opposite me — Vince, Alfie, Frankie and Ronnie — and they wouldn’t leave me alone until I told their story. I’m glad they didn’t.

It’s a novel about four Cardiff men in their eighties who travel to Mijas Pueblo in southern Spain to confront a friend who disappeared twenty-six years ago without a word. But it’s really about something bigger than that. It’s about what happens when the world stops seeing you. About male friendship and the things men carry in silence. About the quiet courage it takes to keep on keeping on.

My editor read it and said it played out in her mind like a BBC drama. My wife read it and immediately demanded a sequel. I’ll take both of those.

It’s the book I’m most proud of. Of all the words I’ve put on pages over the years — and there have been a few — these feel the most true.

The Mijas Cowboy is available now on Kindle and the paperback edition follows shortly. You’ll find it on Amazon — link below.

If you read it and enjoy it, an honest Amazon review means the world to an independent author. It takes two minutes and makes an enormous difference.

Thank you to everyone who has followed this journey — through the character spotlights, the cover reveals, the proof copy photos and the barrage walks. You’ve been part of this.

Now follow the ghost to Spain.

Michael J Phillips — Tales From the Monkey House

https://amzn.eu/d/0j1j0nPF