Epitaph for Brezhnev

Contained within the numerous items on display at the DDR Museum in Berlin is a brief though detailed account of a 1980 initiative on the part of the East German Politburo whereby the objective of this initiative was the seizure, by force, of West Berlin. Although the East German leader Erich Honecker and his colleagues in government were serious as regards to their incorporating West Berlin into East Germany, the Soviet Union, at that time, did not share the East German enthusiasm, due to the potential impact any invasion of West Berlin might have had on the Moscow Olympics and also because Brezhnev was conscious of Soviet presence in Afghanistan.However, two years later, with Leonid Brezhnev close to death, there are shenanigans afoot involving his would-be successors. One of the gambits is a plan by Yuri Andropov to resurrect the Erich Honecker initiative and deliver West Berlin for the Warsaw Pact. How would the West respond if this audacious Andropov power grab strategy was put into practice?

Facade

Holly Stringer is savvy, but will do anything to put food on the table for her young son. Divorced, she is in a desperate situation. Then the unthinkable happens, her dad has a stroke, forcing her to run his detective agency. She soon discovers this remains in the dark ages, surviving on past glories. In order to survive, she urgently needs to modernise the agency and requires a big case that pays big bucks. This duly arrives, but is she capable of solving this as the police warn her off, siting her inexperience? She discovers behind every smile lurks hidden secrets to be exposed and these facades need to be broken down. But every time she digs deeper, she is putting her own family in peril. Will her naivety in the situation win through as she unravels the truth and reveals the villains or will she succumb to the complexities that hamper her every step?

Family Matters

Kimberley Weatherby leads a privileged if rather boring existence with her well-to-do family on the Isle of Man. Her long-time boyfriend has left her. Then two men enter her life: a gorgeous newcomer to the island and a mysterious foreign stranger. Unfortunately, it was the one she doesn’t want that proposes marriage. Meantime she has to navigate some challenging personal relationships.

There are her best friends: Lisa, caring but overemotional and Julie, an ambitious single mother with an eye on the financial aspects of life. Then her immediate family presents multiple challenges. Her widowed stepmother, Irene, is demanding and bitter. Older brother Richard is exasperatingly dull, if diligent. And younger brother Bob is full of youthful exuberance and always getting into harmless scrapes – or are they?

Her romantic dilemma is quickly overshadowed by a dramatic and tragic event which exposes the secrets of everyone. Reeling from shock she must find the strength to resolve a dangerous situation and deal with repercussions that affect everyone around her.

Forgetting the Dreamtime

Sixteen-year-old Kristen has had quite enough of following her evangelical parents’ copious rules. But although up to her neck in both disobedience and discipline, she, nevertheless, suddenly finds herself at the heart of a mystery more profound than anything her willful imagination could have conjured. A challenge so deep that it will affect not only her own fate, but that of the species itself. And, ironically, it will require all of the power of her remaining faith in attempting to overcome it.

A coming-of-age story in the widest and most important sense, Loewen’s characters will, at first, dismay and then inspire as we follow his plucky and precocious heroine and her intellectual beau straight into the abyss of life’s meaning in our own time.

Fourteen Days in August

One August day in 2017, Christina Davies receives a life-changing message about her supposedly long-dead husband Cador. The Native American sender of that message claims to be in possession of documents and items that Cador has left to his son Jonny. One of these items turns out to be an unknown Gainsborough painting worth millions, and it hides a map with directions to a secret hideaway full of fabulous treasures.

This map sets Jonny, Christina and her friends on a dangerous quest that will change their lives forever. But the painting is claimed by ‘other parties’ who want it because it clarifies ownership of land in Boston Massachusetts; ownership granted by King George II for services rendered by a direct relative of Jonny Davies – the pirate Captain Robert Davies. The land is also claimed by a Boston religious community that has become rich off the back of its ownership. But over the centuries their accountants have morphed into a Mafia-linked community holding company that is using the money to fund global criminal aspirations. The secrets of the painting could destroy their plans.

The authors have framed a cast of characters that builds and sustains the story through a well-conceived developed plot. Deep emotional and sexual attachments are formed as their adrenalin-fuelled 14-day journey encounters murder, kidnap, drug running and extreme violence – all addressed head-on by the authors. Their detailed and dynamic writing style drives the plot at a frantic pace, drawing the reader into a breath-taking story packed with desperate chases on foot, speed boats, cars, the London Underground and horseback.

Genevieve – Book I

The manuscript follows a primary protagonist who has gone by many names over the years but stuck to her most recent alias due to its relatable nature: Genevieve, derived from the patron saint of Paris, St. Genevieve, who is often depicted holding a candle and the devil beside her who blows it out when she goes to pray at night.

She is the CEO and founder of the First Fruit Corporation (FFC), a successful architectural and development firm in the organised-crime riddled Clarence City, her ambitions to tear down old sky scrapers and rebuild them in her own ingenious designs, changing the city skyline, gains her a lot of enemies and fewer friends as a strange man and his soldiers come to town bringing her dark and mysterious past of Punic era to her door step.

Getting Even

Alex Feldon is the proposed inheritor of his family’s company and has plans to modernise the business, much against the wishes of his father, Peter, who is both founder and chairman. Father and son have been at loggerheads ever since the terrible accident two years ago in which Alex’s mother was killed and Peter left in a wheelchair.

A mysterious, dark stranger suddenly appears on the scene, thrusting Alex into a deadly struggle for ultimate control of the business as he becomes the victim of two near-death experiences. He is baffled by the uncanny force driving his enemy, Logan, who stealthily takes both Alex’s job and his fiancée, Sanchia. Logan ingratiates himself with Peter as part of his plan to steal the company completely.

Alex fights back by investigating his foe in both UK and Malta, where he exposes Logan’s murky business connections. He doggedly pursues several leads uncovering some unwelcome family secrets, which threaten fatally devastating outcomes for many lives.

Guarded

Jenna:

“I’m a survivor – literally: she died, I didn’t.

That night still haunts me, but it’s not the only thing.  Somebody is toying with me now, messing with me and I don’t know why – and I don’t know who.”

Aiden:

“Babysitting civilians is below my paygrade – and my patience. Especially when my brother’s civil defence unit gets to hunt down the scum responsible for harming a close family friend. But once setting eyes on the shy, pretty little thing I’ve been requested to familiarise with, I decide she might make a decent distraction after all.”

What’s supposed to be a straightforward assignment – with a few added perks – gets flipped on its axis as two defence contracts merge in a sinister, unforgiving way.  Soon Aiden realises he will have to do more than just protect his sweet, new obsession.  Now he will have to hold her accountable for her own crimes.

Hung Out to Dry

April 2018. Two and a half years have passed since the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Barbados’ Prime Minister, Jeffrey Motby. His surprisingly quick and full recovery had enabled him, just eight months later, to lead his Barbados United Party (BUP) to a third successive general election victory. Policies and projects were working. The UK vehicle investment project he had directly masterminded had reduced unemployment to just over eight per cent. England’s Test cricket team was set to visit Barbados to play a resurgent West Indies. A royal visit to Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines was scheduled and the Prime Minister’s daughter planned to marry shortly. There were no known crises on the horizon.

But situations can change quickly. Major, unexpected actions disrupt the best laid plans of the government. A perfect storm? The Organisation comes to town; there is a mid-morning prisoners’ escape and the un-explained disappearance of a senior government official. A botched night robbery in a prime tourism nightspot is also witnessed by a top overseas journalist. A response by government is required as other scheduled sporting and entertainment events become part of the mix. Barbados’ long-established reputation for stability, hospitality and security is threatened by this convergence of events.

The Prime Minister, also the current CARICOM Chairman, demands rapid answers and an early return to normalcy. Events inadvertently connect a senior BIB operative who is hung out to dry. Nothing is what it seems. Can Barbados’ robust law enforcement agencies combine to save the country’s stellar reputation?

Into the Eververse: 1-13

The world that you live in works in mysterious ways, but what if you were told that your world was just one of many? In an alternate dimension, a young girl with extraordinary abilities is destined for greatness. Alice Evelynn is on a journey of a lifetime to stop the apocalypse from destroying the world as we know it. On the way, she will meet friends, allies and, of course, dastardly enemies. The only problem that Alice has is that she has no idea whatsoever that any of this is going to happen. So, like her, you shall be given a warning before you read this book.

The things that happen in Alice’s life are not for the light-hearted. It is blood, guts and gore galore full of murders. Beheadings, rotting corpses and some of the most colourful language that you may ever read. So, as you read the book in your hands, don’t say that we didn’t warn you.

It Is What It Is

It is never that simple, life is full of complications, and society cannot dictate the rules we live by. Sometimes it is required of Frank to step up, and step outside these rules that society has created and that measures into his own hands. He is not a vigilante, that would be such a disregard to what he truly is and has become. No, Frank is a whole different animal altogether, and he shares this life, unexpectedly with people that cross his path. Why they are allowed to live is beyond Frank. Maybe amidst all the carnage the simplicity of humanity can still touch even him.

Journey to a New Life

This is a story about the long and traumatic journey of two hard working Irish families at the time of the great famine and potato blight in Ireland in the mid nineteenth century when the country was governed from London and the poor were suffering greatly from starvation and disease.

The Doyle and the Gill families both became victims of the arrogant and ignorant son of the local landlord and magistrate and were forced to leave the land of their birth.

In different ways they suffered on the first sea leg of their respective journeys to the port of Liverpool in England where they became united.

They decided that their eventual destination was Canada and to achieve that dream they had to earn enough money by working for an extended period in Liverpool and industrial Lancashire.

Finally, they travelled by sailing ship to Canada. How would they fare? Would their dream eventually come true?