Metamorphoses

“Returning to a rejuvenated South Australian infantry battalion, after having been severely injured at Gallipoli, newly promoted Sergeant Major William Berenger finds himself in the sleepy village of Albert on the Somme on the eve of a massive Australian assault at Pozières. Having married Juliana, whom Berenger had first met 15 years earlier as a Boer prisoner in the South African war, Berenger is called again to the colours, despite the impending birth of their first child.

A young British soldier, Private Reginald Atkins from the Ox and Bucks finds himself trapped in a shell hole in front of the Australian trenches. He is soon joined by an injured Australian, Private Lachlan Watts trying to make his way back to his battalion. Subsequently, both Watts and Atkins are tried for cowardice: the Australian soldier being found Not Guilty, whilst the British soldier is unjustly executed.

Whilst on a night reconnaissance mission in No Man’s Land, Berenger encounters a German soldier from the Bavarian 16th Reserve Infantry Regiment, whom he severely injures but does not kill. Removing this soldier’s identity tags, he discovers upon slithering back to Australian lines, the soldier’s identity as hitherto anonymous aspiring artist, Adolf Hitler.

Berenger discovers that the Germans have been attempting to tunnel under Albert in an attempt to blow-up the Australian lines. Pozières must be taken before the Germans thwart the Allies’ imminent assault.”

Marelle

The nature of war is that there is no normal; emotions are always running on the surface; fear, hope, sadness and love can all manifest themselves in an instant.

In this setting, four central characters embark upon a daring and extremely dangerous journey through war torn France in 1944. Two French orphaned children have no idea how they will reach what they believe to be their only surviving family. Meanwhile, two Allied prisoners of war escape their captivity, but behind enemy lines they are uncertain about their survival and their ability to get back behind Allied lines.

They each carry a burden of their own personal heart-breaking tragedy as fate brings them together. The sadness and despair from the loss felt by each of them must be overcome if they are to survive. Survival, however, is not guaranteed as each step they take on the journey is fraught with danger.

They soon realise that love and friendship are the most important ingredients to help them reach their personal objectives. Despite the perils they face they demonstrate courage and determination and never lose hope, because as each day passes and with each crisis they face, the bond between the two vulnerable children and the soldiers grows stronger.

Malory's Grail

The final book in The Malory Trilogy relates how Sir Thomas Malory’s dying wish to see his great work Le Morte D’Arthur safely placed in Winchester Priory is finally fulfilled by his fictional friends. Interwoven with the unfolding story of the manuscript is the historical struggle for the English throne. The dynastic upheavals of the time are inseparable from the journey of Malory’s precious manuscript from prison to print. The action moves between London and Brittany where Henry Richmond is planning his triumphant attack on the usurper, Richard III. Far away in ‘The Other Place’ Sir Tom hears the good news.

Madam Josefina's Social House

Buenos Aires, 1904. A burgeoning city with a political class dominated by ruthless businessmen, a middle class harbouring disenchanted revolutionaries, and hundreds of thousands of working migrants, amongst whom anarchist ideologies are taking hold.Commissioner De La Fuente leads the Detective Division of the Police of the Capital. He’s got a strategy to rid the country of radicalized anarchists before their bombs start exploding, and to quell yet another bloody insurrection. He’s also ambitious, willing to do whatever it takes to obtain the exalted position of Chief of Police. He owns Madam Josefina’s Social House, a brothel, taking advantage of the indiscretions of the powerful to gain their support, through blackmail if necessary.Enter Sofia Montserrat, taking on the job of bookkeeper. She’s an idealistic aristocrat with a secret, writing social critiques for underground newspapers in her spare time. While hiding out from the Spanish authorities she discovers a deadly plot conceived by rogue elements of the police force. She could just let it run its course, but her conscience won’t allow it, and her decisions will have grave repercussions for herself and those she loves.Madam Josefina’s Social House is a historical thriller, which takes the reader from the sweeping landscapes and enduring poverty of Spain’s rural south to the tenements of metropolitan Buenos Aires. And an inconspicuous brothel, a place of erotic passion and Tango, a place where destinies collide.

Lysette

Nine year old French girl Lysette is thrown into the chaos of war when she runs for her life from a bomb dropped on her neighbourhood in Aachen, Germany.  Travelling through the Netherlands, then a long trek through Belgium, she arrives in the town of Sedan in northern France where she is taken into a monastery. There, she is sheltered from the horrors of war. But outside, the war rages on.Local resistance groups fight Gestapo soldiers, and secret messages are sent across northern Europe and Belgium Closer to home, the Gestapo are searching for ‘the girl in the blue uniform’ after Lysette had witnessed a murder whilst in the Netherlands. The reality of war is contrasted with the calmness of the monastery. Will Lysette ever see her parents again?

Liverpool Kids of WWII, Part 2

The boy was growing into youth – not yet a teenager – but was bright enough to know his country was in a war that it mustn’t lose, that his brother and uncles were also part of this deadly struggle…

Melodious harmonies and helmets were heard and seen at the impromptu Christmas party his mum and dad had arranged. He was as inquisitive as could be because it sounded like the Americans had arrived with Uncle Jim for the little house party he’d eavesdropped about over the last few days.

“Gosh a’mighty!” he heard one over-the-pond voice exclaim. “You got gas lighting but no electricity in the house, huh?”

The front room was alive with noise generated by adults, both seated and standing, in a happy conversation. Already, a smoky fuzz was forming from lit cigarettes, held firmly between thumbs and forefingers and used sometimes to emphasise a point or two in the friendly interchange of chit-chat.

The first thing he noticed was one policeman’s helmet and two American army white military police garrison caps grouped together at one end of his mum’s upright piano top. Railway policeman, Uncle Jim was in boisterous good humour with the two Americans.

Suddenly, his young eyes lit up as he spied a crumpled untidy mess of military equipment in the corner of the room, which drew him onto it immediately. He could see a US army belt with what looked like a brown wood baseball bat attached, as well as a set of handcuffs.

Liverpool Kids of WWII - Part 1

The Liverpool Blitz is over…

The seven-year-old boy who was evacuated in The Green Gates Story, comes home after many months away, and is faced with changes to his life: house moves, new districts, new faces…

No sweets, because Mum’s used the coupons for sugar.
What are bananas?
What’s ice-cream?
White bread?

Upon his return to his home city and with his evacuation experience behind him, he views his life ahead as a series of hurdles, but the War is ongoing…

Toys? – Pretend games and a good healthy imagination.
Free-time? – Fun of collecting waste paper, scrap metal, bones and rags, in support of the war effort.

His first trip into town, shopping with Mum, and the surprising sight of big blackened shells, once shops, now dark spaces between buildings, which had suffered direct hits, torn apart innards and burnt deposits.  
Blast waves obliterating shop windows and doors of adjacent buildings, displaying:
Heaps of broken bricks
Shattered concrete supports
Splintered wood floors hanging drunkenly, with massive heaps of dust and debris deposited on the piled remains, awaiting attention and clearance.

How to cope with the unnecessary death of a classmate, killed at play, after accidentally falling through the blitzed roof of an unsafe bomb-damaged house?

When the supply and demands of shortages cause the theft of a family bicycle.

Kids discovering the incomprehensible: German POWs sitting smoking, chatting and laughing, employed in collecting and stacking usable bricks from a bomb site, watched by a grey-haired bespectacled British soldier sat in his parked army lorry when he was not reading a dog-eared copy of Lilliput magazine.  
Same kids, frowning and mindful of captured British soldiers packed into overcrowded huts inside barbed-wire enclosures, overlooked by machine-gun towers, in the Fatherland!

Let’s Go Sit Under the Mango Tree

Singapore in 1942 saw the greatest defeat of the British and Allied forces of WW2. Much has been written about the terrible time endured by the 85,000 troops who surrendered to the Japanese forces on 15 February 1942. Much less has been written about the circumstances surrounding the many civilians caught up in the fighting and subsequently interned or forced to endure occupation.

Such was the speed with which the Japanese captured the Island that little time was given to removing resources that may assist them in furthering their aim of creating an Asian empire. One example is the fact that the island had become the centre for all the gold reserves of the Malay States and Singapore. The Japanese knew this and for nearly four years searched the island for the gold. To this day some of this gold may still be at large as no one ever kept a record of what gold was on the island and how much was consumed in paying the cost of the subsequent guerrilla warfare.

Letters to Doberitz

This unique and compelling story has laid dormant for a 100 years. Inspired by real events and based on my own family during the First World War, Letters to Doberitz is set between a German prison-of-war camp, the battlefields of France and family back in Bristol, as father and son endure very different wars. These were real people. They are my ancestors and family who left an extraordinary tale to be told. A lie is made in the name of love, with letters written compounding the deceit for years, all to protect the man that they loved. This is their truly unique story.

La Palabra De Dios

La Palabra De Dios is the story of a Spanish priest sent on an errand in 1665, from Spain to Mexico to retrieve the religious artifact, La Cruz de Chiapas, to have it interred with its beneficiary, Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas, in Madrid, Spain. Along his journey he uncovers a plot to overthrow Charles II, the King of Spain, as well as being visited by Blessed Mother Mary, and given a special task by Jesus Christ to build a church in present-day Florida. Working with newfound friends, the priest helps temporarily thwart some of the actors in the plot to overthrow the king in the Caribbean while completing his assigned task and growing deeper in faith.

Kingscourt

Kingscourt had been their home since the 16^th century, a rambling country estate with immaculate gardens and rolling Devonshire hills. But one weekend leads to a misunderstanding which changes everyone’s lives.

Julian was a golden boy used to having his own way and whatever he wanted. He was in the throes of a passionate love affair, and that the lady was married did not trouble him at all, until his father’s discovery forced him to make a choice.

Billy was his carefree younger brother used to taking the blame for all his bad behaviour. Joining the Army had been his one ambition and leaving home matured him, but an untimely death and a decade of drifting ended with the Great War.

Simon was a career soldier who suddenly found the Army did not want a man with a broken knee. An unlikely friendship led him to a life he could never have imagined.

Grace loved her home and wanted everything to stay the same, but she knew marriage would mean leaving it forever. An unexpected death and a new arrival turned her life upside down, and the home she loved so much tested her in ways she could never have imagined.

War tested them all as casualty lists lengthened and staff shortages changed their leisured way of life. And one member of the family threatened to bring shame on them all with one wild escapade after another.

James Grant

This story of James Grant, his family and the class they belong to is not of our time. That class still exists and its prosperity is unabated. But its position in the American national psyche is greatly diminished, its glitter dulled by the passage of time – and a change in the mores of society as a whole. But I have written it because I believe the foibles of the human heart and its redeeming strengths possess a universality which overcomes the angst of changing times. I have set the stage in an unfamiliar time to mine. Whether my characters that stride upon that cluttered stage would remain credible in a stark, modern setting, I cannot judge. I had no one in particular in mind in devising them. They are as the ghosts that populate our dreams – a compendium of hints and reflections of those who have crossed our consciousness in the ill-remembered past.