Ginton Abbey

Set on a Friday in May, 1903…

Lord Dickie has a rather odd way of dressing for his early morning strolls around the Ginton Estate. Her Ladyship has a few secrets, and a member of staff is plotting to blackmail her. The Head Butler is the epitome of what a true English butler should be, but his love for her Ladyship goes unnoticed. The buxom maid is a bit too free with her services, whether it’s with staff, trade or the postman… until she falls in love. The dog-ugly cook has unusual nighttime activities and her lumpy gravy is blinding, literally! Will the blackmailer be successful? Will her Ladyship requite the butler’s affections? Is anyone safe from the cook’s lumpy gravy?

Jackson Is Missing

A regency romance in three parts. Part One finds Ella, virtually penniless and homeless. A chance meeting with the postman sends her off in search of a family she did not know she had. She makes new friends and finds herself hiding an unknown gentleman who has two bullets lodged in him.

Part Two rekindles an old romance and tells of a mother’s cruelty to her son, which has disastrous consequences. Old gossip rears its ugly head.

Part Three brings the characters from Part One and Part Two together and Ella finally finds herself a husband.

Keeper of the Red Shawl

This romantic novel begins in the Victorian Era and is based on the eventful life of my grandmother, Frances. It tells the tale of the four men who helped or hindered her path to freedom. Fate was unkind to Frances, but throughout her life, she battled forward fighting convention and the class system.

The story starts when her well-to-do, but aged, parents marry her off at the age of 17 to Jack, a cold-hearted widower with a young son.

Respectfully she did as she was told but this was her first mistake. She became the brunt of his sarcasm and abuse in the bedroom.

Fortunately, Jack soon met with a suspicious end!

Then, along came a dashingly handsome James…

But wait, there’s someone else watching this particular saga unfold, patiently biding his time!

Louisa

Louisa is 15 and living a contented, happy life in London. The Second World War is threatening their peace of mind. Will they all have the strength to survive?

Love and Outrage

This is a story of a love that fights to survive during dangerous times and in violent places. Having fled Latvia to escape religious persecution, Libby Gardstein lives with her criminal brother in the East End of Edwardian London. She struggles to break free from her brother’s dominance to become a teacher of immigrant children.

Strong but quiet undercover police officer, Eddie Nething, works tirelessly to make London a safer place, driven forward by the cruel murder of his best friend and colleague. Eddie is assigned to infiltrate the gang of anarchists run by Libby’s brother.

Against all the odds, Libby and Eddie meet and fall in love. Eddie is torn between his duty as a policeman and his unexpected love for Libby. Libby is split between this new found love for Eddie and her instinctive concerns for her wayward brother.  The stakes are high. They could both be killed if discovered by the antagonists around them. For both Edward and Libby, it is a fight between love and duty.

Love in the Shadow of Mao

China, the epic Long March and Mao’s Revolution

A love story both historical and intimate peopled by fascinating characters

Julia Harrison, rich, beautiful and privileged, wife of a U.S. Congressman. What is she doing in Maoist China? Is she to be rescued or investigated?

Jen Chi-man, was born in the wilderness, orphaned by war, reared in the Red Army and sent to America to become a scientist.

He returns to a world he no longer knows.

Catherine Lee, a Chinese-American doctor from Brooklyn, imbued with a romantic love of the motherland she has never seen, longing to “serve the people”.

In their stories, we get glimpses of Mao, his power-hungry wife, foreign-educated Zhou Enlai and Madame Sun, revered widow of the founder of modern China, a committed Communist who lives in a mansion.

Velvet

Unlocking the Iron Gate

During the 1950s, the people of Czechoslovakia and other Soviet Bloc countries were locked away from the rest of the world and not allowed the freedoms and rights of Western society. However, chinks were made in that Iron Curtain by courageous people who refused to let go of their faith, values, and love until, finally, that oppressive system fell down.In a small village in Czechoslovakia, Zuzana Tesarova must survive under this communist system that wants to restrict her family's religious freedom and speech. Her husband, Jozef"”an outspoken peasant"”is imprisoned for a short period of time and loses his job. Their youngest son, Pavol, is born into these circumstances and grows up behind the Iron Curtain.Despite the fact that he must go along with Marxism and Leninism in academia, Pavol becomes a university professor as well as an active dissident in the underground church where he meets people like Jan Korec, a secret Jesuit bishop. Can Pavol maintain his professional life along with his faith?Then, a chance meeting with an American girl named Katie changes Pavol's life forever.

The Secret of Glaslough

The Secret of Glaslough highlights the story of how one young woman discovers the tragedy that was her mother’s life. It tells of the lengths her family were prepared to go to in order to prevent any prospects of a loving marriage or a happy future.

This novel is based on a heartbreaking true story of a daughter’s search for her natural mother, after she learns she has been adopted. Deborah’s quest lengthens over time and although she faces setbacks and tragedies in her own life, her desire to find her mother remains constant.

As her search continues and the truth about her mother begins to unravel, Deborah learns the reality of being part of a forbidden love in Ireland in the 1930s.

As the story unfolds, it tells of the appalling bias and prejudice which existed during those years. It illustrates graphically and sadly how intense passionate love between two young people should be so unacceptable within the society which existed then – a love which must be stamped out at all costs. And for those who were caught up in all the deceit, they found themselves in the middle of the most horrific of nightmares.

Paris

Love chooses when it will bloom regardless of the time.Under the dark cloud of the Nazi occupation in France, John Reed and his Sophie find something more priceless than all the treasure in the world, each other.This Texan pilot and a French artist and member of the Résistance find love against all the odds in this inspiring novel from L.B. Ellis. 

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 Essence of Grace

Bob Temple is unlucky in love. After his latest relationship fails he turns to his love of music to start a new career running dancing events with his dancer friends Becky, Keith, Matt and Ruby. Becky thinks Bob needs a new woman but he isn't so sure. The dance troupe travel around the country to hold their popular, vibrant evenings of dancing and music. One night, however, a gig in Bury St Edmunds turns very strange. Why are the policemen wearing such strange outfits? And why is everyone so suspicious of modern technology? The group come to realise something very unusual is going on. During this extraordinary evening Bob makes an instant but deep connection with one of the punters, the lovely Grace, but back in his normal life she becomes completely unreachable. Bob soon discovers the lengths he will need to go to to be reunited with Grace.