The Collector

Brave, inquisitive, entrepreneurial: Joseph Banks personified the spirit of late 18th century Enlightenment Europe. Banks’ fascination with the plant and animal kingdom began when he was a boy in rural Lincolnshire. A privileged upbringing saw him schooled at the famous institutions Harrow, Eton and Oxford. As a well-connected, independently wealthy adult, Banks developed a particular friendship with Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, who introduced Banks to the pleasures of angling, and the debaucheries of the London club scene.In 1768, 25-year-old Joseph joined a round-the-world voyage led by the great English navigator, James Cook. This introduced Banks to the freedoms of traditional Polynesian society. He became an ardent lover of indigenous women and an assiduous collector of exotic flora and fauna. Following his return to England, Banks became a figure of renown, lionised by English society. But his dreams of a second world voyage with Cook ended before they began. How did this happen? How did Banks’ vision become a chimera? This novel tells all.

Tea with Kong Zi

Do you think hate is a stronger emotion than love? How can I forget my problems? In China, they say that the first bird out of the tree gets shot. “Tea with Kong Zi (Confucius)” is a work of historical fiction based on the great teacher’s Analects in the form of a collection of dialogues between modern-day manager Pete (the book’s author) and Con (Confucius) on topics such as character, loyalty, integrity, success, and greed. Peter Alatsas, an experienced international manager and consummate traveller, has written a simple and pleasant “value guide”. “My inspiration was corruption and lack of ethical moral character in leadership,” he says. He also mentions that Confucius would never have engaged in active dialogue, unlike the Socratic way, because in Chinese culture the master is always above his students. This is one big difference between China and the West. For Confucius, questioning was the role of the teacher. Having studied the Analects and the literature that Confucius based his knowledge on, Alatsas tries to be practical and to the point being of Spartan origin brevity is the philosophy. In the end, Confucianism was more of a pragmatic wisdom than a philosophy. Among the dialogue, the reader can find creative cartoon images that bring the author’s ideas to life.

My Pain, My Country

It is May 1998, and riots have sprung up across Indonesia with attacks targeting the ethnic Chinese. Buildings are being set alight all around as helpless crowds watch their communities burn to the ground. Nina, a young Indonesian woman of Chinese descent, feels compelled to help her fellow student activists but finds herself in harm's way amid the mass gang-raping of Chinese women. Despite the government's best efforts to deny these allegations, the lives of many were dramatically changed by the traumatic events. Nina's heart-breaking experience is laced with cultural imagery and an emotional depth that will leave you awed. 'A powerful and engaging story about a national scandal the nation prefers to deny or forget. A must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Indonesia and her recent past.'Ariel Heryanto, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia  'Dewi Anggraeni creates poignant, interweaving plots of three generations of women in a family struggling to come to terms with a tragedy, which blends unspeakable violence, tormenting guilt, and lingering shame with the beauty of the batik-making art and the poetics of writing, to open up a slippery path toward a healing process that refuses to forget while continuing to move on. The life journey of each of the characters allegorizes the growing pain a nation must experience to fulfil its destiny as a diverse, multilingual and multi-ethnic society against deeply rooted prejudice and bigotry.' Manneke Budiman, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia

Marian

King Richard is on a crusade. Prince John will do anything to take England from him. Someone must take a stand. Marian has been running from her past and started a new life in Nottingham. When the Sheriff dies unexpectedly, her world changes forever. The new Sheriff puts not only Marian but the whole of Nottingham in danger. She must confront her past and step up to protect Nottingham when no one else will. Along the way, Marian makes friends as well as enemies. She meets an old acquaintance, Robin Hood, but things are not what they used to be. They have vastly different lives and responsibilities. Can they overcome their differences and work together? Can Marian be the leader everyone needs? Will she finally find peace?

Malory's Quest

March 1471, Rogue Malory is dead. His friends, the Newgate Three, set out to fulfil their promise to him to deliver the finished manuscript of Le Morte D’Arthur to the friars of Winchester. But national events intrude and the three find themselves cast out from England. Advised by their old friend, Sir Anthony Tanner, and his betrothed, Margaret Limpsett, they set out to Bruges in Flanders where they seek advice on how to proceed to protect the manuscript. New characters are introduced, including William Caxton who becomes integral to their lives. Previous friends – and enemies – reappear and play their parts. But not all is well. At the end, there is a shocking discovery. Will the quest be fulfilled? 

Lady

On his eighteenth birthday David is given a six-month-old German Shepherd puppy, and immediately a bond is formed between David and Lady, as he calls her. They become inseparable, working together on the family farm in Yorkshire.It is, however, 1944, and the country is still engaged in World War Two so it is only a short time before David receives his call up papers to fight for his country. He wants to do his duty but is worried about leaving Lady behind, David then discovers he is able to enlist her as a guard dog to work alongside him.Although the Germans are in retreat there is still fierce fighting and David, along with Lady, is taken as prisoner of war. Whilst in the camp Lady offers comfort to the internees, and is even a link between the internees and the German guards, and the bond between her and David becomes even stronger.This bond, indeed love, for each other makes them even more inseparable right to the very end.

A Village Betrayed

A poignant story of the impact of war on a defenceless French village during the Second World War. Four courageous villagers join the Maquis, the Resistance in Vichy occupied France, to protect their families. They are swept into a treacherous conflict where one false word or brave action can result in the torture and death of people they know and love.  One old man and a young girl survive the savage destruction that wipes out the whole community.This novel uses the recorded history of the devastation of many rural villages in the Aveyron, Lot and Tarn departments of the Midi-Pyrénées. Oradour-sur-Glane in the Haute-Vienne Department is a famous memorial to the brutality of the Second World War.

Winter Hill: Volume 2

A chance encounter between an airline pilot and a young man in Hyde Park, London sets in motion the pilot’s quest for a long lost first love. The passionate emotional reunion stirs the fires of their not forgotten love, but the road to reunite is almost derailed by the pilot’s involvement with a young American woman.

One complicated situation after another is thrown in the path of their reunion, but their determination eventually overcomes all obstacles to reunite. Their reunion forms a most unusual family unit and a shocking addition to their family.

Winter Hill

The exploits of a first-generation American as he navigates the mean streets of his city through his early years that is balanced with old-world values. His lust for life leads him into dangerous paths that may derail his impossible dream of a life as an aviator.

His quest to satisfy his insatiable desire for a young love combines with an intense love affair with a college co-ed. 

His loss of control over his affairs sets in motion a complicated unsolvable dilemma that requires the young man to make a choice between love or his dream of flight. 

A kept secret received at the moment of his journey to begin his dream crushes his spirit, but he cannot alter his decision.

He pursues his dream at the loss of his true love.

Willowbrook Wood

How it was. How it is. How it shall be. For over two thousand years, the animals of Willowbrook Wood have lived side by side, sometimes at peace, more often at war. Empires have risen. Empires have fallen. After two millennia of conflict and strife, the animals of the wood have resolved to end the senseless bloodshed once and for all. The Willowbrook Union, the great pan-species alliance was founded to bring peace and prosperity to all. But now, after several decades of increasing wealth and harmony, the cracks between the species are once again beginning to appear. Economic hardship and a sudden surge in immigrant species have led to increasingly animalist beliefs and a rise in specism. What will the future hold for Willowbrook Wood?

Wild About Harry

In 1938, Harry Glass is a precocious eight-year-old Jewish boy born and raised in London. Unconstrained by obedience, he is as much the despair of his immigrant parents as they are a puzzle to him. As, indeed, are almost all grown-ups—teachers, neighbours, everyone except his Aunt Lily. At times, he manages to appall even her. Just speaking can become a disaster as his schoolmates’ cuss words roll innocently off his tongue at home. The mood there darkens, too, with the news from Europe.

After the fall of France in 1940, Harry is evacuated to Wales and welcomed into a farm family by everyone except the daughter and a young Welsh nationalist farmhand. But the war reaches into Wales, too, with the bombing of shipyards and chance raids. After being machine-gunned from the air while on a class picnic and later witnessing supposed perfidy, Harry suffers a breakdown and is hospitalised. His ward-mates are recuperating survivors from Dunkirk and wounded Spitfire pilots from the now raging Battle of Britain. Both befriended and bedevilled, Harry comes of age as the world fights for its life.

Whispers Through Time

This historical drama, part true, part fiction, is based on the mysterious lives of the author’s maternal grandparents’, Walter and Winifred, spanning most of the twentieth century.

Encompassing the Boer Wars, the end of the Victorian era and the Titanic tragedy, the characters not only travel onwards through these times but also to the colonial outposts of the British Empire.

As the first book of a trilogy, Whispers Through Time introduces the personalities, dreams and motivations of Winifred and her family. The mysteries that surrounded her life in the past intrigue her real-life grand-daughter, Heady, who tries to unravel them in the present day.

Why did young Winifred leave London alone on a ship to travel to Australia?

Why especially in June 1912, just months after the Titanic tragedy? Where did her brother, Oscar, disappear to without a trace? And what happened to her beautiful younger sister, Francesca, after her tragic love affair?

Time is an ever-present theme that waxes and wanes like a tide throughout lives. There are the what-if moments, the only if moments and the sad reality that past and present generations can never meet, forever separated by time.