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From Wellies and Chapped Legs to Brogues
Ten-year-old David’s life is not easy, living in dire circumstances with his alcoholic mother in a wreck of a home. His one true friend is Rebecca, the other children tolerate or make fun of him.
Following an accident, he is befriended by Hobo, who moves in and out of the village with his belongings in a pram.
When David’s mother dies over the Christmas period, he spends time at Rebecca’s home and is then taken into care. He escapes, seeks solace with Hobo and together they escape the village, and in time, David is sent to live with Hobo’s brother on the South Coast, where he learns Hobo’s story.
Here, David's life changes completely, but there are still setbacks and challenges along the way before he returns to the village and his life becomes entwined once again with Rebecca.
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Father of the Farm
Welcome to Brungle Farm, the last stronghold of the indomitable Brungle twins, Bees and Clarafina. Alongside them live twelve laborers and their families, subjected to the twins’ unyielding rule reminiscent of their formidable grandfather, Grandpa Brungle. Their reign is as rigid and crushing as any tyrant’s, their whims leading to the spilling of workers’ blood merely for amusement. When they are not the centre of the twins’ cruel games, the workers are treated with disdain even the farm’s cockroaches would find familiar.
Soon, an enigmatic figure known as Leader approaches the farm with a proposal for Bees. Leader seeks to leverage Bees’ influence as the face and voice of a burgeoning political party, aiming to seize control over the entire country. However, the anticipation Leader harboured for weeks rapidly curdles into alarm upon hearing of a man named Petrus, a serene ex-priest. Despite being cruelly uprooted from his home and forced to toil on Brungle Farm, Petrus has been sowing seeds of hope among his fellow workers. Word of Leader’s murderous intentions for Petrus and the rest ignites a series of events that, after a night of destiny, will forever alter the face of Brungle Farm.
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Emma's Rock
Meet siblings Deli and Emma. Emma never procrastinates. Her to-do list is tiny. She has an array of tools to ensure that no task ever gets left behind. Deli, however, delays everything. He wants immediate pleasure, doing easy activities, just to avoid the pain that comes with working on the hard stuff. Follow the course of their contrasting lives. How does Emma get started and then always deliver? Can Deli rescue himself from the harmful consequences of his behaviour? And as you read, ask yourself, are you more Emma or more Deli? Do you habitually put things off? Is it adversely affecting your life? What can you do about it?
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Emile Zola's Ark
Émile Zola (1840–1902), prominent leader of French Naturalism in novels and drama, was also an environmentalist, way ahead of his time. He had a great love and respect for animals of all kinds and shapes. Throughout this book, you will discover his love from the smallest creatures: ants, spiders, bugs and frogs, bats and rats, all the way to birds, rabbits, cats, dogs, donkeys, cows and bulls, horses, and even zoo lions. The stories, which are partly fictional but mostly realistic, clearly show his love of and admiration for most animals. In the process of telling them, he inter-mingled some humorous episodes. Who wouldn’t laugh at the description of Gédéon, his donkey, getting drunk after savoring a bucket of red wine and raising havoc in his stable? And who wouldn’t cry at the death of a dear pet? The stories in this book have been gathered after reading his complete works (fifteen volumes of more than 18,000 pages of Émile Zola: Oeuvres Complètes, edited by Henri Mitterand, the most eminent scholar of Zola’s works, professor emeritus at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Columbia University in New York City, in the ‘Cercle du Livre Précieux’ edition).
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Emersyn
The Whiley family have survived a whole lot of misadventures but now that Mason is in charge of the dynasty, he is hell bent on changing their checkered past. Mason feels like there is a deep calling to move out of the early centuries and be more modern. Soon a conflict develops between him and his mom about a business decision he has to make. Val, his sister, convinces him to go with his instincts and as a result, the past converges with the present and all hell breaks loose. Will their family be able to survive the betrayal and the deception? Will love overcome their sins?
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Eight Miles High
The story begins in the womb. Our heroine is born into a very happy life with adoring parents who she comes to love deeply. Then, tragically, she becomes an orphan when her beloved parents are killed in an air crash. She has to go into an orphanage and then a foster home and at long last she is adopted by a lovely couple but she can never love them. She wants to be an actress and eventually ends up in Los Angeles. At the age of twenty-one she inherits a fortune from her parents. She marries a man who she thinks is her dream. But is he her dream or is there another agenda at play?
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Draw Me a Fish
The world was falling into a downward spiral and there seemed to be no stopping to it. The news was bad on TV and the radio all the time. People from the city were getting sicker and sicker with illnesses that didn’t have a name yet.
Needless to say that the village’s infrastructure could not bear the load of more new arrivals. The fresh settlers were using the lake as, a public swimming pool, a bathtub and as a washroom, and the streets as a playground for their children.
Does this image stir some odd feelings inside of you?
Do you believe that we can just sit back and let go?
Well, I don’t!
What about another chance to turn the odds towards a better tomorrow, one that resembles our children books’ images, a place where it is still possible to dream of pink clouds in a blue sky.
What about teaching our children to do so, in an easy and smooth way. If we start today, before tomorrow, we have better chances to make that dream come true.£7.99 -
Dog's Conundrum
Dog has a problem. His beautiful world is in crisis – again! Should he let events take their course, or should he interfere?
This book is an invitation to see planet Earth through the eyes of Dog and Mother Nature, from the era of the dinosaurs, though times of plenty, to our current and future crises. Who’s to blame? Is it us? Is it them?
This magical read takes us on an insightful journey where individual stories from around the world blend and unfold as Dog’s intimate understanding of the big picture grows. Despite the gremlins, can humans recognise what it is really that matters? Will the warmth and humour of the sprites be strong enough to help people rediscover the wisdom in their souls when faced with fear of losing everything they hold dear… or will Mother Nature not be prepared to wait any longer?
The best and worst of human nature is exposed here. Our assumptions are challenged as this book digs deep into ideas which will resonate with many.
£12.99 -
Dodgson’s Dodo
This is the story of six characters, all birds. What begins as a quirky woodland tale evolves into a challenge to the mismanagement of the environment by humans, and their abuse of power over all other species. There’s banter between the birds, information about the natural world, there’s serious debate and there’s satire. It’s fun and it’s thought-provoking.
The title refers to the fact that Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) immortalised the otherwise extinct dodo in ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. The dodo was yesterday’s bird, but what will be the fate of tomorrow’s birds, of tomorrow’s humans and of our fragile, suffering planet?
The hero of ‘Dodgson’s Dodo’ is a feisty rook, Rachel, who plays a smart role in this fascinating, imaginative and beautifully realised story. All the birds are real characters, and everyone reading it will be both entertained and better informed. It’s witty and memorable, but above all it’s topical and relevant. Its message is urgent.
“It should be prescribed reading for high school Biology students.” Anne Kendall - retired high school science teacher.
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Destiny’s Story
The story begins with Destiny sitting alone in her prison cell, feeling completely detached. In a solemn reflective state, she mulls over her past actions, bad decisions, and life experiences. Her parents had migrated from Africa to France before she was born, marking the start of a life of movement, spending her childhood living between Africa and France with her family. Despite a visual impairment, Destiny was successful academically. Popular within her community, sociable and creative, she dreamt of becoming a famous singer or actress, but drug and alcohol abuse began to darken her life.
This was the beginning of trouble, misadventure, and challenging relationships. Realising that France was no longer the place for her, Destiny finds herself on the move once more, looking to improve her life. An intriguing opportunity arrives when Destiny is offered a dream holiday to an idyllic tropical island. Accepting this offer was a decision that she would forever regret. This personal, moving, and emotional journey ends with an event that was foreshadowed at the start of the book, the arrest of Destiny and her friend at an international airport.
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Destiny Ruled by Mind
There are no evil people, the same as there are no virtuous ones. Everyone is born with an inherent sense of good as well as with the evil reflected from the society. There are weak, strong, and extremely strong people. The existing conditions surrounding him impel a weak person to display all his weaknesses, while a strong person demonstrates his positive side despite adverse circumstances. And all the while, the strongest person creates his surroundings himself.
Don’t allow your fear to shatter your faith because it’s the struggle between fear and faith that determines one’s fate. And the outcome of their battle is one’s destiny.
Many can be kind when things are fine, but it’s important to show how kind you are when you have a reason to be resentful or bitter. Satan was an angel before his fall. It is the fall that proves if one really deserved being at the top.
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Death's Door: Second on the Left Down the Corridor
You will spend a lot longer dead than you did alive, but what is death? What is the state of ‘deadness’ like and how do you find out? Would a seance be better than an ouija board? Does the British Library have a book on the subject or with its skill in killing people, does the War Office have a pamphlet? Would a priest have the answer and if so what denomination? If the Forth Bridge is a long way away in Scotland, cold, wet, windy and hard to climb, why is it so popular with jumpers? I have written a letter to God, what address should I put on it? How do you connect with your ‘Jewish side’ if you don’t have one and will drinking malt whiskey with an unorthodox rabbi help? And why is the frog at the bottom of Eric’s tankard called Clarence?
These and a host of other questions beset Miles Short, an aging man still rankling at the heartless parents who gave him his unfortunate first name and followed it up by calling his brother Weebit. The pursuit of an answer takes him down devious paths and to a somewhat undetermined outcome.
£9.99