Not Exactly Friends

Ageing actor, Charlie Wallace is jolted back to a post-war past to find lost loves and friendships from his tough and brutal schooldays and a summer spent at Connaught Hall – whose consequences follow him today.  Protected by his schoolboy hero, Christopher Mountjoy, Charlie’s infatuation with Christopher’s sister, Isobel leads to the discovery that brother and sister have a darker side. Friendships can be fickle in a world of make-believe, where fact and fiction blur.

A passionate encounter with the girl has consequences too, when the actor is forced to abandon the stage. Past and present again collide and more events from long ago return with implications of their own. Can Charlie keep his memories safe and will he ever be reconciled to what took place at Connaught Hall that summer?

“Peter Fanning’s pleasure in language, literature and the theatre shines through this gentle, sometimes dramatic, story of growing up and falling in love in the 1940s. A sympathetic study of the agonies of self-discovery, it has romance, charm and a glorious English setting."

- Heather Neil, writer and critic, Literary Editor Times Educational Supplement.

Not What The Good Fairy Promised

Twenty-four-year-old Joanna’s life flipped upside down at the taking of a phone call. News of her sister’s near-death in a fire triggered the onset of bipolar disorder, a mental health condition that Joanna would have to manage for the rest of her life.

A scholarship to Cambridge, with three years to get her degree, had ended in this. Joanna’s high hopes, and her father’s fierce ambitions for her, now lay in tatters. A glowing future of any description lay beyond her grasp as she struggled to get to grips with her new and utterly foreign reality. Where was she going in life now?

Not What the Good Fairy Promised is the heart-warming story of a young woman’s experience of terrifying breakdown, psychiatric hospital, and the stigma of mental illness. There is the battle with everyday life, with its frightening demand that she re-discover her identity – her selfhood – while struggling to survive and earn a living, yearning for something worthwhile to fill the hours of nine to five. This is a tale of experiencing, and overcoming, serious mental illness, of driving ahead to forge a new and unlooked for future – and what the Good Fairy did deliver.

Nusantara

After dropping out of university, getting a job as a storeman, doing drugs and then splitting up with his wife, Jack, in a fit of depression, joins the Australian Army and is sent to East Timor at the height of the troubles. He “volunteers” for a mission in Indonesia, where the United Nations, with help from the US Navy and the Royal Marines, are trying to rescue a group of foreigners, mostly Europeans, being held hostage by the local rebels. Jack completes his mission only to become the victim of misdirected revenge.

Old Days And Old Ways

Maggie was born into a race of Romani Gypsies first discovered within Scotland in the 14th century; they were then known as “Little Egyptians”, which later got corrupted to Gypsy or Gypo, but were known to each other as “Travelers”. People believe this group of Romanies originated from India, but Maggie strongly believes that her race originated from Egypt; hence the endearing name of "Little Egyptians". From the 14th century to the late 18th century, the Gypsies were viewed with deep suspicion, distrust; sold into slavery and put to death by hanging, simply because they were so different from others. They spoke in their own Romani language, which is still intact today. They made their own medicines and potions for themselves and their horses, and, for hundreds of years, worked on the land for farmers but using old skills to make the wooden clothes pegs, paper and wooden flowers baskets, hedge laying and stone walling. They could also live quite well off the wildlife of the country side, needing to buy very little from shops. They would barter for flour, eggs and cheese from the farmers they worked for. Gypsies are a very self-supporting race; a race which is still in strong existence today, and Maggie is very proud to be a part of this race.

Old Jim's Poems for Kids, Young and Old

James Tweddle has composed poems of wide appeal.  Whether the readers are nine years old or even younger, or eleven years old or even older, this book contains many poems to capture and hold their interest.

'Are you interested in conserving our natural resources? .... or satisfying your curiosity about natural phenomena? ..... or wondering how it was possible for a shark to have a pirate's leg growing out ofthe top of its head? .... or enjoying reading of conversations between animals? ... or heeding warnings about catching crabs? ... or going fishing? .... or watching fairies in the back garden? ... or nonsense poems about imaginary creatures?........... then this book is for you!

Whatever your interests, it is to be hoped that you have been lured to dip in, become immersed, firmly hooked, and well and truly caught, by reading or listening to this illustrated book of poems, which is available in paperback, hard cover or e-book editions.

One Chance

The story revolves round a girl named June, her everyday ups and downs, her romance and how tragedy changed her life forever. June, raised from a very young age by her grandparents, lived a sheltered life, abandoned by her mother, who had tried to make contact down through the years, only to be ignored by June’s grandmother, who had held a grudge from days gone by. Meeting Matt brought her such joy, the seas that brought them together would one day divide them. Exhilarating joy…only to end in tragedy. Why didn’t she grasp her opportunity with both hands? What was it that was holding her in this place?

One Year on My Hundred

In the vibrancy of nature’s year, the author dances through fields of flowers in his wondrous relationship, ever-thinking to be married. Smiles and fast pace leave little time to pause and to just be. After the death of his father, he realises that the very things that make him so happy have become scars to his thoughts.

His mind’s comfort zone throughout is under the protective canopy of the trees. Every day, the changing skies affect his well-being, and by looking upwards, he wonders of the liberty of flying and what lies beyond. Maybe there is a heaven.

Set to the backdrop of Hazlemere and the Buckinghamshire landscape, the book allows the reader to realise the beauty of life; however, each person needs an angel, whether religious or not.

While in Barbados, he walks happily on beaches, yet the sands hold the sadness of the death.

Sewn through the pages are ribbons that are his show of emotion and pride.

This is a book where each poetic piece is complete in its own right but it needs to be read from page one to the end to appreciate how the common themes pass through.

Oscar’s Odyssey

Now more than ever, children need tools to help build the resilience and self-confidence necessary to cope with our ever-changing world.Join seven-year-old Oscar, a likable, relatable, and honest character, as he enjoys an adventure-filled odyssey, learning important life lessons on the way. Come along on his journey as he visits the aquarium, deals with a bully, rides a horse for the first time and hunts for Grandma’s missing llama.During weekly visits with his wise Grandma, they discuss, explore, and find practical answers to some of the challenges he is facing growing up. Through heart-to-heart conversation, Grandma shares the importance of showing gratitude and kindness, and helps him acquire the skills necessary to cope when faced with difficult circumstances. In so doing, she helps Oscar discover helpful tools to store in his toolbox of life.These interactive stories are written to make suggestions, invite investigation, and encourage discussion. 

Otto Papesch

Otto Papesch was my father. I was four years old when he died. I asked myself for years what kind of a human being he was. I have attempted to paint a picture of that handsome, charismatic, cultivated, professional chemical engineer, enthusiastic sportsman, photographer and family man by basing myself on the vast correspondence that still exists, his diary of 1917, stories about him from my mother and grandparents and the innumerable photos he took over the years. This has been an attempt to describe his prominent characteristics but also shed light on his dilemmas and the contradictions in his personality and thereby to describe the important events of his short life. Would his destiny have been different had he been born a year later?

Our Future Selves

Imagine waking up inside someone else’s body, and in a different century. What would you do? How would the new world around you react to you? This is what happens all the time to Zak Emblin, an editor from 21^st century Birmingham, UK, and Sarah Templeman, a prison service doctor from twenty second century New Palm Springs, USA, who are ‘reincarnaters’, connected across time by a shared soul.

Imagine you are a bright, young scientist, Carmen Fry, who stumbles across the truth behind reincarnation. All you need is a subject to prove your theory to the world, but you can’t find one. Until one day, when you are chatting online, you find Zak, and are immediately attracted to him.

This is the story of three people, caught in a love triangle, sharing a secret that no-one else will believe, that when we die we form a connection with a future self, who shares our reincarnated soul. A connection so strong that sometimes we can become that future person and they can become us. We can swap bodies across time.

Out Of 2020

2020 was different for all of us. It may have been difficult but if we look at it through a different lens and see how we can grow then it becomes a new experience – a way “Out of 2020.”

It is only when things become a challenge that we learn to grow and evolve. The last few years have become the start of a new revolution towards an experience we all need to achieve our purpose.

Outwitting the Enemy

Andrew was recruited into the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in 1939 for his linguistic talents and other qualities suitable for working in the Service.

By early July 1940, he had already been sent on four missions including the sabotaging of a train carrying tank engines inside Germany, assisting in the evacuation of BEF soldiers from Dunkirk on one of the ‘small ships’ and surviving a number of life-threatening incidents when bringing King Haakon and the Norwegian cabinet from northern Norway to exile in London.

In November 1940, he is persuaded to help at Camp 020 with the interrogation of German spies captured in England; a few weeks later, he completed his naval officer training in Scotland and southern England.

With the Atlantic convoys being attacked by U-boats operating out of the German-occupied ports of Lorient and St Nazaire with heavy losses, he is sent at the end of March 1941 to spy on the building of the submarine pens for a possible raid by the RAF later in the year. He narrowly avoids being captured by the Wehrmacht and returns to London with vital information.

He undergoes parachute training in May 1941 before being dropped in NE France where he is escorted by a French Resistance group to Koblenz. His mission is to deal with a member of the SIS that had become a senior officer in the German intelligence service (the Abwehr). By some good fortune, he manages to escape by Lysander back to England.

The story is a most compelling, absorbing and attractive read with strong classical elements. It has a clean plot for the time period covered which develops and unfolds through a captivating storyline; the relatable cast of characters will keep the reader enraptured up to the very last page.