Breaking the Flood

In Breaking the Flood, the first of four novels about the fall of Constantinople, Niccolo Gritti, a nineteen year-old scion of an aristocratic merchant dynasty in mid-15th century Venice, recounts his upbringing, his family’s impoverishment and his decision to take ship in a trading fleet to the eastern Mediterranean. Ambushed by corsairs, Niccolo is pressed as a galley slave. Soon, a fellow oarsman identifies himself as Demetrius Angelos, member of a distinguished military family in Constantinople. Demetrius is desperate to return there, threatened as his city is by the bellicose ruler of the Ottomans, Mehmet II. Eventually, the two young men escape the corsairs’ clutches and Niccolo decides to throw in his lot with Demetrius, journeying with him to the decayed Byzantine capital. At once, Bildungsroman and quest narrative, Breaking the Flood is both vivid and haunting, recreating a forgotten world with cinematic and at times hallucinatory clarity.

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.

A Time to Live

1936. Clouds are looming over Europe. Uncertainty hangs in the air. It’s been less than 20 years since The Great War and there’s talk of still darker times ahead.A young Englishman caught in the middle of the Italo-Abyssinian War joins up with the Red Cross Humanitarian Ambulance Team to do what he can to help in the war effort, and forges bonds that will carry with him through the darkest days of Spanish Civil War and beyond. Bonds that will stay forged for the rest of his life.

A River by the Window: China Remembered

A River by the Window: China Remembered is a family saga of life during China’s tumultuous history from the late 1950s. Set amidst the purges and denunciations and exiles, and the terror of the Great Cultural Revolution through to the so-called ‘Great 1980s’, are the human stories of how families and individuals coped with the crises that overtook them. Human life went on; there were births and deaths and marriages, loves bloomed and friendships formed, careers were pursued and happiness sought. It traverses China from north to south, from east to west, to the ‘Open Door’ policies of Deng Xiaoping. This allowed China access to much western culture, with its liberal values and social trends, such as an appreciation of individualism, sexual liberation, western music and fashions, all fertile soil for germinating the seeds of democratic values and ideas, with this, in turn, leading to further gradual social change.

A Dangerous Hour for England

Fin Ross grew up working on the land in the small village of Pamphill, Dorset, as the ripples of the French Revolution began to have their impact on Britain. Bound to the ‘de Lacey’ family who owned the magnificent Great House, Fin is discovered in a place that he probably should not have been and observing something that he probably should not have seen but which would change his life.Having to flee from his home, Fin ‘volunteers’ for the army, starting a new life that leads him into adventures across Southern England but swiftly moves to Portugal and one of the greatest battles of the era. He learns to survive not only from the threat of musket, sword and cannon from the enemy, but also from those who have followed him from his home.Trusted friends become an integral part of Fin’s fight for survival as he faces up to shot, shell, accusation and treachery…

50 Plus Recent Events which Helped Shape or Shocked the Nation

What Would Make Your List?Writer Roger Knowles has assembled a comprehensive list of the most critical events which have created modern British society. From the tumultuous political events which saw war hero Churchill being replaced by ‘peacetime politician' Attlee to the ramifications of the Poll Tax, this book seeks to tell the story of contemporary England in small, enjoyable vignettes. Written in clear prose, the 50 Plus Recent Events Which Helped Shape or Shocked the Nation is a book which educates, explains and elucidates some of the biggest tragedies and victories to befall Britain.

The Journey

On Christmas night 1879 my 19-year-old Great Uncle, John Diver left his thatched home, Whinpark Inishowen. He walked the eighteen miles to Derry Quay. He boarded the SS Devonian. The Statute of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation confirms its arrival on 1st January 1880. Why did someone so young embark, alone, on such a hazardous journey?By chance John, a skilled facilitator, met other young people who were forced into that miserable, morose migration of the largely unreported ‘an Gorta Beag’ (small Famine).These included the enthralling James Feely, who found unlikely inspiration from the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. This led to the discovery of his psychic powers. He meets the recently deceased Paul Cullen, Ireland’s first Cardinal, hears divinations from Thomas FitzGerald the 10th Earl of Kildare about a meeting with the most beautiful Empress in Europe and the Three Magi who predicted the miraculous Apparitions at Knock. Who, if anyone, does he dare tell? We meet the troubled Matthew and his resolute sister Mary. After Maggie, their teenage unmarried sister, gave birth they resolved to travel to America to find her displaced infant. What caused one of the siblings to have a change of heart?Church Martin, a gifted musician and mystic, follows that ancient Celtic tradition of using music to enchant and distract an enemy rather than entertain. He demonstrates this by stopping the movement of the ship mid Atlantic to becalm the vessel. Will Church and Mary discover the angst of an unrequited love? Jack Turner is a young man with a hidden past. Will he too find unexpected friendship? The story, a unique blend of fiction and non-fiction, culminates in the friction of a frantic, frenzied pursuit for survival to avoid an enforced asylum admission and deportation.The unfolding personal revelations become a fascinating intrigue - a compelling timeless Irish Tale that is more than a match for The Canterbury Tales.Atlantic Anecdotes and Dark Disclosures en route from the Inishowen Peninsula to the Port of New York.

Wolfgang's Castle

Amidst the secluded valleys of Bavaria, 1940, lies a covert Nazi stronghold, the womb to the sinister Project Sea Eagle. Here, in hidden chambers beneath the earth, Nazi scientists toil over an innovative menace: a fleet of aqua-planes intended to unleash a torrent of terror upon Britain’s shores once more.Against the dark tide rises a band of unlikely allies: four anti-Nazi Germans, two audacious SOE operatives, and twenty captive RAF officers. With scarce resources yet unyielding resolve, they plot to dismantle this aquatic harbinger of invasion. At the heart of their mission lies the experimental ‘aquaplane,’ a swift maritime vessel conceived to ferry troops and weaponry across the Channel, a dire threat to England’s already beleaguered coast.The citadel of Sea Eagle, veiled beneath the earth, eludes the reach of aerial bombs, and a direct military assault is a gambit Britain can ill afford. Amidst the storm of war, Major Archie Wellings of the SOE forms a daring coalition with two German couples and others, orchestrating a clandestine assault on Wolfgang’s Castle, the nexus of Sea Eagle. They turn Nazi ideology against itself, employing ingenious subterfuges to thwart the looming peril.Wolfgang’s Castle is more than a tale of espionage and warfare. It delves into the essence of patriotism, the indomitable spirit of resistance, and the unexpected corridors of camaraderie amidst the horrors of war. With a sprinkle of satire, a glimpse into wartime’s gender dynamics, and a tender vein of romance, this thrilling narrative is not just a journey through the shadows of war, but a venture into the myriad shades of human valour and ingenuity.

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.