Unlikely Destinies

As part of a small Australian military group three sisters of immigrant parents participate in secret missions to counteract People’s Republic of China coercion and planned terrorist attacks in the Indo-Pacific. The sisters enjoyed a happy but meagre childhood in a remote West Australian township from where they emerged as the fortuitous beneficiaries of a private school education in South Australia. They displayed exceptional talents in standard and elective subjects. As young adults they excelled in tertiary education and gained degrees in linguistics, admiralty and Pacific constitutional law, pure mathematics, and computer science before coming to the attention of Australian intelligence agencies and the military. They were recruited by the military group for clandestine assignments that ranged from the outer boundaries of the South China Sea to Papua New Guinea and in between. The main parts of the story are about these assignments.

Under the Shade of the Mango Tree

Inaya – the daughter who knows her father to be dead.

Imaad – the son who has persistently betrayed and disappointed his father.

Zahra – in search of the man who saved her childhood and protected her mother.

Salmaan – An autistic youngster who finds it difficult to navigate himself in the big, wide world.

Today.

Inaya – The news of her father being alive shatters her existence completely as she is left with an air ticket and a damning decision. 

Salmaan – Her brother, autistic and confused escapes through an unlocked front door and discovers a world that is cruel and far from safe.

Imaad – A drug dealer on the brink of uncertainty drowning in a sea of betrayal and animosity.

Zahra – Finders not keepers of the man who changed her life and future.

Then, one moment, a fatal incident rips their souls apart and transforms their landscapes forever.

Under the Desert Sands

On honeymoon, an archaeologist couple, Toby and Lucy, meet an emergency on Lake Nasser. A man, Hassan, was being attacked by a crocodile. Can they rescue him? Will he survive?

Leaving the lake for the Western Desert and its oases. They go to Kharga and have a wonderful party. A fantasia entertains them with whirling dervishes, Nubian dancers and pipes of hashish being handed around. Then back on to the White Desert, a “Wonder of the World”. They get stuck in the deep sand and freeze in the cold night; dug out, a surprise in the hole left by their rear wheel.

Is it what they hope? Is it part of a temple? Is it an archaeologist’s dream or just a lump of stone?

Lucy bewitches a colonel in the Baharyah Oasis; he brings manpower to raise the block. Suddenly, the edge of the deep trench crumbles and sand and rubble collapse into the hole. What will become of the young couple?

Two Watches

“My second watch. I want it back now,” he said to me on the phone. No greeting, straight into it.

He ended the call soon after. I hung up and was quite distressed. His confusion was getting worse. Was this the onset of dementia? Would I ever have a proper conversation with him again?

This was the last conversation Will had with his father James. While it made no sense at the time, a chance discovery made while cleaning out his father’s apartment opened up a whole new part of James’s life that Will had not known, filled with adventure and new relationships.

From Lithuania in 1991, and the backdrop of ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Vilnius, we travel with Will all the way to the present day through his own family’s history as he learns more about his father and in turn, more about their own relationship. 

Turn A Blind Eye

When Craig Walters discovers his widowed mother is dying, he puts his dreams on hold and accepts a position at a small private bank in his hometown of Melbourne, Australia. For Craig, the steady income offers a chance to regroup. However, his indoctrination into the banking world quickly deteriorates when believing he’s stumbled upon an elaborate fraud scheme. His covert digging into the bank’s files for confirmation promptly sets off alarm bells that reverberate around the globe and unwittingly lays bare a more in-depth, sinister plot.

Linking Melbourne with modern-day Irish politics, and the unlimited power and reach of the Vatican, an intricate web of corruption and unbridled greed is spun, that entwines all that come in contact.

And whether to Turn a Blind Eye becomes a matter of life and death.

Truth Will Find a Way

Set in Mayfair, West London, Truth Will Find a Way finds a group of friends whose private lives are as unconventional as those of the Bloomsbury Set. The group’s lynchpin, Lady Monica Montford, runs the Gayton Art Gallery, a central meeting place for the friends when they visit the capital. The interweaving of their personal relationships is as complex as a game of chess; will they all remain on good terms?

Truth and Debris

In 1968 the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. The Prague Spring, with an opening of minds and actions, was suppressed by an authoritarian regime. In Truth and Debris, a Czech psychologist escapes from suppressed Czechoslovakia and becomes a psychologist in a Canadian school. After years of work in Canada she uses recollections of her work with children, and her own childhood memories, to dig for the few shining truths in the twisted debris of her past. Can we all imagine truths lifted from the debris of the Czech invasion being of value during the current invasion of the Ukraine? Are values, deeply hidden below debris, important for our current, general, concern for a few foundational, shining and shared, truths?

Three Titles

Three Titles will captivate and entertain you. It will also make you feel. 'Written from Heaven' will take you to a country church where you will find Wren trapped within its walls, forced to face all truths about her life before she can be truly free, in every sense of the word. 'Sanctuary' will introduce you to Dr Pascale Miner, a retired psychiatrist, who has moved her life miles away from the familiar, alone. But will she stay in her loneliness very long? 'The Stories Live On' is a must read for the stories to live on. Carolyn has experienced the pain of rejection and has survived the truth.

There Are No Doors

There Are No Doors is about a family’s journey through life; the sacrifices, joys and dreams that carry them through several generations and four countries, and how they face each other and their challenges: with love, anger, humour, and empathy. There are no doors that are closed to the human spirit.

The Yellow Field

Love, lust, passion, and deceit culminate in the ultimate price being paid for revenge.

It is a hot, steamy summer and the Blonde is bored with her marriage to Phillip, a successful designer. When she meets the Hollywood actor, Black Lomax, they are instantly attracted to each other. In an old hotel at the edge of the yellow field, she embarks on an affair, unaware that Black’s past is lurking in the background, intent on exacting revenge. This leads to devastating consequences for everyone involved.

An unhinged heiress, a suicidal sister, and a relationship which has gone sour, all add to the havoc unleashed.

The Willows

An early life of neglect and pain doesn’t deter Jack from being determined to be accepted and then later to realise his endeavours. The journey is fraught with failures, dangers and disappointments. His friendship with the children of an eccentric family who have rented ‘The Willows’, a large but run-down house in the beach resort where Tom is living, proves to be not only a turning point but also the scene of great tragedy. His experience is widened when he goes to university and becomes involved with many different groups of students. Although popular, Tom is unable to form any permanent relationship for some time. He comes to realise what this impediment is but cannot bring himself to tell anyone. Thirty-five years later, when he has retired from work, the tragedy that had happened at The Willows comes to haunt him and he realises he could be a suspect in a murder.

The Widowers

Paul has been a widower for three years and he would be the first to admit that he feels lost in the seaside town that was to be the retirement home for him and his late wife. Only Paul’s faithful dog, Zeno, gives him comfort. Through a chance encounter, Paul meets Geoff, another widower and dog-owner, in the same boat as Paul. As he reflects on his marriage and his experiences, exchanging thoughts with Geoff, Paul begins to form a new perspective on his life, exploring his sense of loss but beginning to glimpse the possibility of a life after the death of a partner. He is not so old. He’s not too old to change. Each sunrise in the bay brings a new day. There are still journeys to be made before the sun sets at last.