The Great History of the Manor Bouchove Part 3: La Licorne and the Labyrinth

Having lived in a house the villagers of Bouchove sweetly call châtelet, I realised I have enjoyed a privileged life. This is also true for the place of my birth, Maastricht—the most beautiful town of the world, I shamelessly claim. I have grown up there in a good family with ten children. Eighteen years old, I started my study on Rural Development in Wageningen, which is the smallest university town of the Netherlands.

There, I had the luck to find my lifetime wife, who followed me to all the places in the world my ambitions reached for. She gave birth to our two daughters and a son—three children we raised together and who developed along different lines into worthy individuals.

Looking back on all this, I praise my luck and thank the Lord for it.

The Good Life

Jimmy Cartwright, a young and handsome teenager, loses his virginity whilst on holiday in Spain. Chrissy Bennett is a young school girl who leads a normal uneventful life with her parents and two siblings. They meet briefly at school where Jimmy leaves a young impressionable Chrissy besotted before he suddenly disappears from her life.

Six years later fate intervenes to reconcile the young couple, but Chrissy can not foresee how this reunion would change her and her family's lives so dramatically, escalating into betrayal then murder.

The Feather

Grace is replaying every day like it’s Groundhog Day. Travelling, work, drinks at the local pub with the chance of spending the night with her best friend as her consolation prize. The only thing keeping her mind occupied is the mysterious comings and goings of the removal and work vans next door.

A man in a white suit draws her attention as she walks quickly to get her bus home from another day at work. A stumble off a rain-soaked pavement in Edinburgh sparks a chance meeting with her new neighbour and the beginning of a relationship that doesn’t just take her by surprise.

The Dawn Birds

This is a story in which love, faith and loyalty collide over a series of decades. The tale is told in turn by three friends who meet at college, namely Elda, Luke and Gordon. She is a young student mesmerised by the personality of ‘Father’ Luke who is a Jesuit priest with ideas that don’t always accord with Church dogma, especially when it comes to love. ‘He loves me, he loves me not,’ she would repeat at night whilst he knelt dutifully at his prayers.

An antidote to Luke was Gordon and his kilt. And so, they went their separate ways only to meet up again later in life, in Africa, with a whole new set of challenges, disasters and ultimate triumph.

The Curious Tale of a French Salesman

Lionel, a young travelling salesman, works for a company selling electrical products. He and his family endured a dreadful time during the Second World War, but life is comfortable for them now. An excellent salesman, he is confident in his work, but rather shy with young women. He regrets never having had a girlfriend.His manager offers him the chance to pay a week’s visit to a part of France of his own choosing, where the company do not currently do any business, to see if he can obtain orders there. He readily agrees and consults his family. For some reason, his grandmother is impelled to suggest that he should go to northeast France, near the border with Belgium.Upon arrival, he discovers in a very strange way an unexpected fact about his family’s history. There is a prospect of romance for him, but will work pressures and his shyness get in the way of finding love?At times he meets with anti-Semitism, which shocks him particularly as he is patriotically French, with secular attitudes. He encounters fascinating characters, whose lives have been impacted by the World Wars, sometimes tragically.How will his life at work and at a personal level evolve? Will he succeed in business, as well as finding true love?

The Cottage

When Jo inherits a neglected cottage on the Avon near Stratford, she steps into a world of hidden histories and family secrets. Left to her by her enigmatic Great Aunt Lily – better known for her estate in Cornwall – this humble cottage serves as the catalyst for a series of events that plunge Jo into danger, including an ominous figure from her past. As Jo delves into wartime diaries and heirlooms, she unravels a tangled web of loss, grief, and the devastating consequences of war and personal betrayals.

Aiding her in this journey is Al, the loyal gardener, who helps Jo tend to her aunt’s once-vibrant gardens. As the gardens flourish, so does Jo, finding strength and growth amid the blooming flora. But as she navigates through her family’s complex history, she must also confront the lurking dangers that threaten not just her newfound peace, but her very life. This gripping story explores the far-reaching impact of secrets, the resilience of the human spirit, and the transformative power of nature.

The Confession

Ania was in turmoil.

She was feeling neglected and unloved. She knew she was being selfish, but her feelings were the only truth she knew.

Then a fateful opportunity presented itself and she couldn’t resist. Temptation had found her vulnerable and wanting and before she knew it, she was caught up in a short passionate affair.

And with that, she set into motion a chain of increasingly deviant and destructive events that crushed her sanity and threatened to take her very life away from her.

As her world spun out of control and her life crashed around her she found herself ever more lost and caught up in a vortex that she couldn’t get out of.

As things went from bad to worse even she didn’t know if she’d survive…

The Closest Thing to Crazy

The ultimate ‘It’s never too late’ story, showing that both adventure and romance can be there for the taking – irrespective of the age. This inspiring and charming tale tells of forty-something Eloise Callaghan, turning her back on a way-too-safe existence to travel to Argentina for tango lessons. It changes her life; and after surviving a kidnapping and a reckless Argentinian romance (and that’s just for starters), she finally realises that all this time the perfect man is back home. But will the planets align?

After all the books on the market about women of a certain age finding adventure in Mediterranean countries, The Closest Thing to Crazy switches the action to South America. Eloise’s journey into the unknown forces her to face her demons. And she finds it’s never too late to dive into the deep end, and never too late for love.

The Cedric Files

It was only a teeny tiny mistake, after all, that first propelled our immigrant hero, then seven years old, and his family to America in 1888. But was it that same “slip-up” that would soon kill his father, and was its shadow destined to follow Boris and undermine any success – in life and love – for the rest of his life?Thus, in a tale that spans that escape from European confinement of Jews to not long after Boris’ death, we are caught up in his triumphs and reversals. From the misfortune that accompanies his Hartford hotel’s celebratory 1916 opening, through war and pandemic, economic ravage and social upheaval, rumors only fuel the regular recurrence of a “curse.”Among the wide range of characters interacting with Boris and this question: another precocious enterpriser and politician; a jealous one-time supervisor; his forbidden lover and mother to illegitimate son, who himself will “transgress”; and his granddaughter, a beautiful if questionably talented actress.Throughout, there’s Cedric, Boris’ invaluable assistant and still hotel concierge. Now at 77, does his stumble onto old attic files help him resolve his boss’ contradictory legacy? And what about the last-minute twist, the one that threatens his own imminent retirement?

The Boy Who Talks to Animals

There are things within us beyond our understanding which have been and still are forces of nature. There are active parts of our brain working yet no one really knows why and what they are doing. We know that the body compensates in its own way for a loss of sense. Blindness can sometimes be offset by enhanced hearing, touch, taste or smell. Autistic people who often find it hard to socialise and relate to others have produced some startling abilities. How do we explain photographic memory, total recall and speed-reading, not forgetting a whole range of psychic aptitude? Does science end as we know it, or does it? This is a story about such a person who has an ability to communicate with animals and the awakening of special gifts that we may all have inside us.

The Beach Café

Anna was stuck in a dead-end job and a loveless marriage. Once her children had flown the nest, she realised she needed to make some major changes to uncover the person she once was, the confident and spirited individual she had been.  As hard as it would be to move out of the family home and regardless of how apprehensive Anna felt about going alone, she was much more scared of staying.  After gathering all the courage she could muster and having made many plans, Anna and her trusted dog, Teddy, set out to the Norfolk coast to build a new life.Anna had rented a small wooden beach house she had come across while walking Teddy along the coast, it needed quite a bit of TLC, but Anna was up for the job, imagining the beach walks her and Teddy could enjoy and the view of the sea that would greet her each morning, Anna was sure this would be a good place to start her new life.Anna was welcomed in the community and one particular resident, a very colourful lady named Maggie, decided to take Anna under her wing. Maggie was a pillar in the beachside community, and she knew everyone and everything that went on.A twist of fate and a little help from Maggie led Anna to a run-down beach café which, like herself, needed re-building. What Anna didn’t expect was who this little café would bring into her life or the person from her past who would come back to haunt her and the adventures she would have along the way.

The Awakening Life of Tessa James

Having been with men for most of her life, and having suspected something was wrong, Tessa James realises she is gay at the age of 28. Years later, she is still waiting to fall in love. She opts out of the dating game after a shocking encounter with her doctor. It was unexpected, and it is the final straw. She decides to forget about love and focus on her artwork and her new career at the art college, where she meets Kit.

As she realises she has finally met the right woman, Tess reflects back over her sexual exploits and what she has learned about herself along the way.

The Awakening Life of Tessa James is a series of playful, heartfelt, funny and erotic short stories highlighting Tess’s journey toward love.