Love Beyond Love

This very personal and moving love story takes us from the anticipation of the very first date through to the moment of the very last breath. It encompasses sheer joy, romance, fortitude and sadness. But love and memories live on forever because this is a Love Beyond Love. – Jan Smith (a friend)

Love on the Vine

Set between the old Cotswolds market town of Stow on the Wold and the Dordogne region of France our heroine finds herself in a life-shattering situation having caught out her cheating husband.

Approaching her 50th birthday and with two children, one away at university and the other out on a gap year in the far east, Lottie will struggle by with the help of a few friends as she ponders where she will go from here.

Heartache and low self-esteem abounds her every waking minute; will she ever recover, can an escape to her elder sister’s holiday villa in France come to her rescue? Join us on a journey that will give the reader an idea of how true friendship works and enjoy an insight into the wonders of the Dordogne countryside that is a must for wine lovers and general tourists alike.

Will a chance meeting with a charming handsome French vineyard owner refuel her passion for life or will a chance discovery ruin it, the journey is sometimes painful but some amusing moments can intercede. Making the right life choices and decisions at the right time will decide how Lottie’s life turns out.

Mabel Murphy

It’s 1920s London and the world is in a deep economic depression. Times are very hard and the city is rife with unemployment, poverty and disease. One family in East London
have managed to keep themselves afloat, housed and fed, despite having one parent with a long-term mental health condition, but that is all about to change as their teenage daughter is catapulted into a series of life events which are traumatic, heartbreaking and shocking but which make her become a much stronger and more resilient human being than she ever dreamed possible.
This is a harrowing story of innocence, shame, hostility and vicious cruelty from the very people who should be caring for those in need, but it is tempered with love, hope and the potential to change one’s situation given the right opportunities.
Although fictional, this was a true story for many women of that time and is based on several older women whom the author met and supported whilst an NHS nurse in the large hospital system.

Magic Mickey and the Golden Dragon

How on earth did the twins Michael and Freya become trapped on an old-fashioned pirate ship?

Michael and Freya wake up to find themselves trapped aboard “The Golden Dragon”, an old pirate ship controlled by the wicked Captain Nastypants. 

Mummy and Daddy are nowhere to be seen. 

The terrified children wonder “how did we get here”?  

More importantly, HOW DO THEY ESCAPE?

Magikal Mumbai Flavours

‘Food and culture go hand in hand; as life moves on, we win some and we  lose some. There are times where we have to learn to adapt, infusing our  life with flavours. So far, my life – including my journey from the  classroom to the restaurant – has been blessed with some very old as  well as very new recipes of warmth and love.‘Basic Indian cooking  revolves around a healthy lifestyle, and in this wholesome book you will  learn to cook old regional dishes like Malvani chicken (from  Maharashtra on India’s west coast), Mangshore jhol lamb (from Kolkata on  the east coast),  Laccha paratha (from the north), Kerala lamb curry  (from the south coast), as well as modern fusion dishes from the global  food village, such as Mexican chimichangas, Arabic ouzi, Mexican chaat,  butter chicken pizza and spiced pesto fried rice – all with an Indian  twist.‘It has been an absolute pleasure and source of pride to share  the tips and tricks I have inherited to make Indian cooking an  experience for you, whether you are cooking alone or with your family  and friends.’CHEF SEEMA DALVI

Making Old Bones

Gramwell Glade is Making Old Bones.

A care home, purpose built around a Georgian folly castle façade in Essex, Gramwell Glade is making a fortune for business developer Akin Akindele who, armed with an MBA foresaw that high end care homes were going to return significant returns on his investment.

It’s Making Old Bones of Pauline Graves’ career since moving from hospitality to head up the staff at Gramwell Glade and putting her misplaced hopes in a liaison with Akindele.

It’s Making Old Bones of the dedicated carers who support its sundowners while supporting their own families on the small fiscal returns their efforts bring on the ‘living wage’.

It’s laying old bones to rest. For many of the residents their time at Gramwell Glade is their first experience of surrender when it comes to real life responsibilities. That onus now falls to their ‘children’ who now have their parents’ Powers of Attorney and who are handing over the funds that would otherwise satisfy a mortgage sufficiently large enough to buy their own castle.

If we know someone who works in the care sector or spends their twilight years in a home, if we visit family or friends who have moved on into residential care, make no bones about it, something like the Gramwell Glade experience could come to us all.

Marsupial Tracks

As a jaded regular in the city’s underground music scene, the only thing that mattered to Jacob Blythe was punk rock. When the arrival of a mysterious girl tempts him into seeing a vision of the world that exists beyond the confines of his cosmic nihilism, Jacob finds himself helpless to resist it.

Now, sitting alone in an unfamiliar train station, and possessing no memory of how he got there, Jacob has no choice but to piece together the scattered remnants of this fractured past before he is consumed by the sinister creature chasing him.

With time running out and one of the greatest punk bands of all time about to take the stage, Jacob has only one chance to discover the answers to life’s most complicated questions.

If only he and his friends hadn’t drunk so much first…

Mary and Her New Friends

Mariam, who is lovingly called Mary by her family, is lonely at school but makes new friends by demonstrating a talent drawn from her native culture: drawing henna patterns on hands. 

Mary and Her New Friends is written specifically to attract pre-schoolers and kindergarteners, and includes some coloring pages of sample henna patterns at the end of the book. The children can color in these, thereby developing their creativity and fine motor skills.

Master Builders

Chris finds himself in a foreign environment and form, ten light years from Earth after his untimely death. His mentor, Brian, explains the new order of things. He discovers that he is now in a mechanical shell and bemoans his loss of some body parts. Chris joins three other junior builders, that have been tasked to seed the universe with newly tailored and tested sentient beings. Chris gets into trouble with the Sentient Species Test and Evaluation Facility management but is then instrumental in saving Earth from an Orion reptilian attack. He interacts constructively with the galactic federation based in the Pleiades, leading to the resurrection of an old treaty between Earth’s United Nations and the federation.

Max, the Landmark in My Street

Max, the Golden Retriever, is no ordinary dog. From stealing cricket balls to eating Vegemite on toast, Max is always part of the action. Everyone wants a dog like Max.

Max, the Landmark in My Street is a warm uplifting story about a dog, his family, and the neighbourhood. Exploring such themes as love and loyalty, this picture book is the perfect introduction to what friendship with a dog can be like. Join the family as Max grows up and learn the value of owning a dog.

Me

Ron Pearson was born in Bramley, Leeds on August 12, 1924. He began writing this book on August 12, 2021, his 97^th birthday. After a childhood beset by illness, he left school at 14, and took a job packing parcels in a multiple tailoring factory, not for him. He moved on to packing parcels general muggins at an advertising agency at 50 pence a week, which he loved. His career in advertising was interrupted by a four-and-a-half-year spell in the army on ‘Special Operations’. Returning to civvy street, his career culminated in being appointed Managing Director and then Chairman of one of Yorkshire’s most respected advertising agencies. He was a local actor for almost 50 years including the renowned Bradford Alhambra and Playhouse.

There are some sad moments outnumbered by many hilarious ones. Ron’s beloved wife, Pat, died in 2017 after 66 years of happy marriage.

The list of ‘celebrities’ he has met is impressive, including Princess Margaret, Prince Charles, Hollywood’s Marlene Dietrich, George Raft, Sir Ralph Richardson, George Best, Jackie Charlton, Harry Worth, Alan Bennett etc.

Me and My Shadow

Me and My Shadow – Memoirs of a Cancer Survivor is a brutally honest account of one teenager’s struggle to understand and deal with the most feared diagnosis known to society: cancer.

At 18 years of age, John Walker Pattison was thrust onto a roller coaster ride of emotional turbulence – his innocence cruelly stripped from him; his fate woven into the tapestry of life.

After years of failed chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments that ravaged his physical frame and almost destroyed his psychological stability – his parents were told that he would not survive. Yet, today, he is one of the longest surviving cancer patients in the UK.

Eight years after his unexpected recovery, the news that all parents fear, his daughter is diagnosed with terminal leukaemia. Yet like her father, she too would defy the odds and go on to become an international swimmer.

Pattison turned his life full circle and became a cancer nurse specialist at the same hospital that made his diagnosis decades earlier. He prescribes chemotherapy and cares for individuals with the same cancers experienced by both him and his daughter.

Throughout his journey, Pattison’s inspirations were the space rock legends, Hawkwind. He would get to play on stage with his heroes at the Donnington Festival in 2007.

More significantly, he found solace throughout his cancer journey in the history and spirituality of the Lakota Sioux Nation. In 2018, he would spend time on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with the indigenous people of South Dakota. The same people who, unknowingly, supported him through life's greatest challenge: cancer.