Starnberg Series Book 8: Yesterday When I Was Young

In the eighth and final book of the Starnberg set series, no couple escapes the grip of misfortune. From a terrifying cancer scare and a child’s meningitis to a life-altering car crash in distant Toronto and the unravelling of a once-strong love, this year is a true battleground.

As they confront these challenges, their bonds of friendship and support deepen, providing a lifeline through the storm. Amid the turmoil, an older love rekindles: Sybilla’s mother, Emmeline Mertens, faces a family tragedy and rediscovers her first love, the formidable divorce lawyer Magdalena von Reichenbach. Will anyone emerge unscathed?

Light a Candle in My Soul: Poems and Poetic Sketches

What is it that touches your soul, warms your heart or enlightens your mind? Do you dream and do you wonder? What do you seek and what comes of your thoughts? The Greeks sought, according to Aeschylus, to ‘tame the savageness of man, and make quiet the life of the world.’ The Earth itself is a Being, radiating outwards a consciousness that, no matter the vineyard in which you toil, each of us can reconnect with, refresh and renew ourselves, and perhaps even remake the world around us. In an Age of Absurdity, the soul’s longing has an uncommon degree of strength in the beauty of expression. Your thoughts and words change the world.

The Gift – Part II

Jack Spencer, a 19-year-old, has joined the space fleet that is on the way to capture the aliens that had invaded his world years ago. They left, and he has joined the hunt with powers he is not even aware he has. He finds friends and enemies in the fleet while trying to survive the attempts to kill him and upgrading the fleet with his ideas. He finds out he has two little girls. Xbiet has been called Cursed and has been exiled from the city. He has been told by the Cursed before him that he will save the world. The strange beings that have come from the stars are not nice and hurt everyone, including each other. Since no one is allowed to even hurt each other, there are no weapons. He has to figure out how to do this. Luckily, he has powers, some of which he did not even know about. He also has to change the law about the Cursed before his little sister gets the same treatment.

Addicted

Humans are biologically hardwired to alter their mental state, drugs are the pathway, and America is their biggest consumer. From antiquity to modernity, use and prohibition have gone hand in hand. Addicted raises the curtain to expose the lies and fill in the blanks behind America’s failed 50 year war on drugs and makes sense of the quagmire of misinformed laws and policy, blending Miller’s investigative journalism with historical narrative.

In addition, Miller tells the story of nature’s three primary psychotropic plants and the history of government efforts to suppress them: Papaver Somniferum, the opium poppy, the drug of Asian mystery, which provides opium and its derivative alkaloids morphine and heroin; Erythroxylum Coca, which provides the cocaine of all night parties and glamor; and Cannabis Sativa, L., the historical intoxicant of rebellion and counterculture. These plants convert soil, water, nutrients, CO2, and light into complex chemical substances, which can elevate, intoxicate, and even heal.

Addicted unravels the institutional mechanism that fuels the war’s self-perpetuation, its abject failure, and its deplorable byproduct of racial injustice. The stories in Addicted feature a diverse cast of heroes, villains, and bureaucrats as well as all the post-Nixon Presidents who failed in their version of the war.

Bailey's Bandanas

Bailey, a spirited four-year-old blue heeler, is thrust into a world she doesn’t recognize when diagnosed with cancer. Despite her age, her indomitable spirit is known to take on challenges headfirst. But this time, the stakes are higher – it’s the fight of her life.

Plagued by confusion and fear, Bailey struggles to understand her sudden bouts of sickness and the changes to her once familiar routine. Yet, during one of her chemotherapy sessions, an unforeseen event turns the tide, instilling hope and unity amongst all the canine warriors battling the disease.

A Piece of the Action

What is it like to spend a lifetime doing research in a wide variety of fields in the physical sciences? Studying distant planets, binary stars, neutron stars, stellar mass black holes and active galaxies using optical and near-infrared ground-based telescopes. Designing and constructing equipment as a member of international teams studying the high-energy X-ray emissions from many of these objects. Flying these detectors on short duration sounding rocket flights, utilising huge balloons to carry experiments to high altitude, or installing them on long duration satellite missions. Being a scientist engaged in fieldwork studying the physical properties of the world’s oceans, or the sea ice and glaciers around the coastline of Antarctica. This lifetime involved living in the UK and Australia for many years, with a four-year interlude in the USA, as well as working in or visiting many other countries. How lucky can you get? This book describes numerous projects in an unusually diverse range of research areas – the fun and adventure of STEM activities – without getting into excessive technical or specialist detail.

The Tale of Timothy Twigpig

Timothy Twigpig has never been outside. It is, after all, important for a hedgehog to hide. But when he sneaks out, what will Timothy discover?

A tale of the humble hedgehog, discovering the world beyond the wood. A book to educate and inspire the next generation to care for our countryside and the wildlife within it.

Toby Turtle Turns Bright Purple

Meet Toby Turtle, a curious little fellow who loves to explore the swamp! When Toby discovers a mysterious thorny bush and makes a new friend in Simon Snake, he can’t resist the temptation of delicious blackberries. But what happens when Toby doesn’t heed Simon’s warning and eats one too many? Join Toby on this colourful adventure and learn why he might just be the most eye-catching turtle in the swamp!

The Enchanted House Chronicles: Sisters, Secrets and Sorcery

The Enchanted House Chronicles: Sisters, Secrets and Sorcery is a laugh-out-loud tale of adventure and magic, focusing on the lives of three sisters during the Second World War. It is the first novel in ‘The Enchanted House Chronicles’, a series of five stories following the girls’ antics as they uncover their family secrets.

Issy, Molly and Daisy arrive in Hastings to stay with their great aunt, Miss Baglio, to be safe from war-torn London. However, rather than the lovely seaside holiday they were hoping for, something feels off about the house, and they are sure that their unwelcoming aunt is hiding something from them. They are determined to discover what is in the secret rooms that are off limits, and the meaning of the identical dream they have all been having.

Buckle up for a cracking adventure, filled with mischief, fairy cakes, cuddly cats, and a mystery like no other, that will leave you keenly anticipating the next book in the series.

Two Little Birds

Two Little Birds is an enchanting tale for readers of all ages. This captivating story follows two small birds as they navigate challenges through the power of communication, encouraging readers to be brave, strong, and unafraid.

Rich with wisdom and curiosity, the narrative resonates with the throat chakra, highlighting the importance of finding peace and energy through expression. The book emphasizes how communication is a powerful trait, requiring courage and strength to truly convey one’s feelings and thoughts.

Join these two little birds on their adventure and be swept away by the beauty of poetic storytelling and vibrant illustrations. Discover the strength within you to harness the power of your voice.

Namaste.

Death at the Ommegang

In this gripping sequel to Karma, Patti Howland, daughter of the U.S. President, attends Cambridge University under an alias, seeking a normal college life. As she navigates her studies and relationship with Lucas Ndlovu, a dangerous web of international intrigue threatens to unravel her secret.

Viktor Rubinsky’s terrorist gang, in league with corrupt African forces, sets its sights on assassinating President Howland and thwarting the democratic aspirations of Thembani Ndlovu, Lucas’s father. With multiple assassination plots targeting a visit to the spectacular Ommegang festival in Brussels, Patti and her friends find themselves in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Patti must confront her deepest fears and risk the ultimate sacrifice to protect those she loves in this explosive novel that will leave readers breathless until the final page. Filled with pulse-pounding action, shocking twists, and richly drawn characters, Death at the Ommegang is a tour de force of suspense.

Cherubell

Who was I to question reality?

As the light fractured into its familiar colors, I questioned again.

I balanced my treaded foot on a granite surround, these words etched deep:

‘It’s not the size of the person in the fight, but the size of the fight in the person.’

This balancing act in a garden within a sanctuary became my new reality. A crossroads, a junction, a tightrope walk between the firm, enduring granite and the sodden grass of the everyday.

A sense of poetic inevitability washed over me as the words of my life – past and future – enveloped me with the comfort of bedrock and splintered light. How fitting that these words formed in prose, a passion from my youth now reignited, burning too bright to ignore. Were they my words, or those of a power greater than myself? The mystery lingers.

Is life a simple journey? Not in my experience.

This is my journey, told in prose.