The Dance of Darkness

Time had not died.

It was still flowing like her blood.

Her mind had become what it had endured and more; for now, with the dust, she saw butterflies floating in her room – here, there, everywhere.

Infused with lyricism and the romantic aura of pre-colonial India, The Dance of Darkness is a story about a bewildered town with only women, girls and hijras. Raised as dancers and lovers, the girls Surma, Parveen, and Dilchasp traverse through their usual routines until the presence of one man triggers all that the town has ever wished for – love and freedom. 

The Dagger and the Rosary

Sicily in 1693 is recovering from a devastating earthquake and struggling under the oppression of the Spanish Inquisition. Raids from Barbary pirates menace the coastline, while European Princes plot against each other. Meanwhile, the sixteen-year-old Bernardo has been brought up in an isolated Benedictine Abbey since being orphaned seven-years before. Now an unexpected journey will introduce him to this chaotic and often cruel world, where his faith will be tested.

Rescuing a young girl, Agata, from Barbary pirates will reveal his presence to an old family enemy, as well as introducing him to a secret brotherhood, and to the confusion of adolescent love. However, as love deepens, the petite Agata does not remain a victim for long, growing into a beautiful woman and determined avenger. Family secrets and desperate journeys threaten to tear them apart but will ultimately lead them both to find out what is most important in life.

The Caledonians

Scottish history master Mr Petrie has the gift of eternal life. Working for a group of mystical superior beings, his time-travelling missions land him in all sorts of death-defying scrapes and encounters, sometimes with famous and ruthless people. To help him in his dangerous work, he's told to find a young apprentice. Duncan Dewar could be a candidate but has his own secrets too, and without realising it, their lives are indelibly linked.

The Blighted Road

The Blighted Road is a 17^th-century story of two women’s harrowing journeys through plague and a brutal witch-hunt. Orla, renowned healer and mid-wife in rural England, confronts stillbirths and a mysterious, deadly sickness afflicting her community. The local superstitious people suspect these sinister events are the actions of the Devil. Desperate for answers, Orla’s investigation into past plague outbreaks reveal a shocking correlation with the harvesting of blighted grain. Her revolutionary findings lead to accusations of witchcraft. Meanwhile, Abigail, a young Londoner faces the horror of life in the plague-ridden city. After losing her family to the Black Death, Abigail escapes the locked gates of London. She flees on the plague road to Salisbury, which is fraught with danger and despair.

The separate tales of these women weave in and out as they reach a time and place where they are united by grief, loss and an uncanny will to survive.

The Apricot Tree

The flames crept up the curtains like a swarm of tongues. They curled and stretched into the rafters, and like a marauding army, the flames swept across the roof.

Outside the Van Vuuren sisters watched this cruel act of war. The roof collapsed along with the Van Vuuren heritage and the Van Vuuren dreams.

In 1899 the mighty British Empire declared war on two small Boer Republics in South Africa. The war was expected to last a matter of months, but it took almost three years for the Empire to claim its victory. It changed lives, challenged loyalties and divided families. 28,000 women and children were to die in the British concentration camps.

Tales Of The Hove Amber Cup

During roadworks in Hove, a Bronze Age tomb of exceptional size was unearthed. Inside was an oak tree coffin containing the skeleton of a tall male, and accoutrements showing him to have been of high social status. There was a bronze dagger, an axe and a whetstone. Resting on his breastbone he held a cup, shaped like a modern item of breakfast crockery but with a rounded base. It was made of Baltic amber. Who was this person? Why was the cup made of amber so dear to him? Amber, that offspring of sunshine and trees, has the Baltic Sea as a godmother. How did he come by it? Was he a trader? How far did he travel? Did he bring home new ideas together with exciting spices and artefacts no one there had seen before? All answers can only be speculative conjectures. The cup having been found in Hove does prove though, that Albion had contact with the Baltic Sea. Tales of the Hove Amber Cup is a celebration of this 3000-year-old British treasure.

Stretto

Before she can be drowned as a witch, Elizabeth Robinson is swept away by the tide and the devil wind of Boston, Lincolnshire. She issues a curse on those responsible and declares that it will only end ‘when the birdman falls from the sky and into the mire’. Then, and only then will the evil in her descendants that is ever present will be finally defeated ‘and love will again prosper’.

The story traces the fate of the Robinson and Williston families through their time during the English Civil War and their uniting together in Boston, Massachusetts, two hundred years later. There is action aboard the Lusitania and Southern Ireland followed by a return to England and then the battlefields of France in WWI. The climax of the story occurs back in the USA after two heroes, Stephen Robinson and Bobby Williston, return at the end of hostilities only to be involved in a trial followed by an aerial combat.

Stones of Destiny

One man’s greed can change the course of history forever…

FIFTH CENTURY BC, ATHENS
Humble sculptor, Nikodimos, toils away in his workshop to create a sumptuous marble masterpiece of Athena Parthenos destined for the Parthenon.

NINETEENTH CENTURY AD, ATHENS
Lord Quimby, blinded by greed, plunders the ancient Parthenon of its dearest treasures, watched by his helpless nephew.

PRESENT DAY
Young Cambridge student, Max Perceval, discovers a dark secret about his late ancestor and realises all is not what it seems in the Museum of Classical Antiquities.

Stay and Die

Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory in 1879, when the railroad arrives, is a boomtown for men and women of dubious virtue from all over the West. Gamblers, gunmen, crooks, shady ladies, they all drift in, and the result is explosive.In this febrile and dangerous environment, real historical characters interact with fictional ones to create an atmosphere of tension which will climax in violence and passion.John Joshua Webb is one of those who arrive in town looking for action. Josh will run into old friends from Dodge like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and will cross paths with the likes of Jesse James and Billy the Kid.But most of all he will have to deal with the sinister éminence grise of the wide-open town, Hoodoo Brown, who first hires Josh, but then needs him gone.Josh will find love and lose it, and he will have to decide whether to leave, and live, or stay and die…

Spoils of War

On his 21^st birthday, Glenn spies his rogue of a grandad making his way through the throng of the party to where he stood at the bar. Victor is a war veteran and a hero from Dublin, but these days, fifty years later, he is seen usually outside of a pub. Loved by all the men and despised by the women, what secrets does he hide?

He tells Glenn a fantastic story of hidden war treasure and challenges his grandsons to go to North Africa and find it. The story is laughed off until Victor’s untimely death leaves the full-written story and a pot of money. The grandsons feel they have to follow Victor’s footsteps, and so begins across continents an adventure of murder, treasure hunting and love…

Sons of the Earth

In 1897, following the death of their parents, the three Pearson brothers have reached a crossroads in their lives. Having grown up on the family farm it was always assumed they would continue with the tradition, but two of the brothers have ambitions of their own. The youngest, John, had always yearned to be a soldier, and the oldest, Paul, saw his future and fortune in the newly discovered gold fields of South Africa. With farming in his blood, Matthew feels betrayed by his brothers and is determined to hold onto the farm at any price. As they go their separate ways Matthew’s bitterness intensifies, harming everyone who gets in the way of his ambitions. With the outbreak of the Second Boer War both John and Paul face their own tragedies and betrayals with circumstances that are set to affect all three brothers. Events come to a head as all three brothers are reunited back in England. 

SOE Agent Code Name LILLY

Mary Dumont is a third officer in the Women’s Royal Naval Service working at the Admiralty Communications Centre in London in 1942 where she is recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to become a wireless operator-saboteur. Parachuted into France, Mary joins a small band of resistance fighters where she leads a double life, a schoolteacher by day, a wireless operator by night; all goes horribly wrong, Mary is captured and tortured by an SS major who is determined to obtain both her codes and the names of her companions. Mary makes a daring escape during an air raid, unknown to her, German Intelligence has infiltrated SOE, a double agent known to Mary has also been parachuted into France to capture a Dutch scientist who is escaping to England with plans for the German V1 flying bomb. Evading capture, Mary’s resistance cell must get the scientist to England before he can be handed over to the Gestapo, but first Mary must eliminate the German double agent. Just when she thinks it is safe on returning to England, Mary and her companions discover the identity of the traitor within SOE, they must try to eliminate him before he can return the scientist to the Germans.