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Trevelyan
It is the end of the 18th century and the end of schooling for four Cornish youngsters. They share their aspirations for the future, not realising there is a price to be paid.
Cornwall is the land of mystery, legends, folktale and myths. Tiny villages with narrow winding streets nestle around rocky cover ideal for landing and distributing contraband. The fishermen are dependent upon the sea in all its moods and are forced to subsidise their catch with smuggled French brandy, tobacco, tea, and silk. The only other possible occupations, the tin mines and the farmed estates, are in the hands of the wealthy few, like Lord Trevelyan. For most Cornishmen life is harsh.
To fulfil her own hopes of a better life, one young girl Karenza, discovers there are secrets to be concealed and seemingly impossible promises to be honoured, played out against an austere and merciless Cornish landscape and the ongoing hostility of the French.
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Treasures of War
Leningrad, 1941.
Germany’s Operation Barbarossa is tightening its noose around the city. The Neva River and Lake Ladoga freeze. Few supplies reach the city. Thousands suffer from cold and starvation.
Katuska and Nina Koslov, young daughters of a dedicated museum employee, shelter in the basement of the great Hermitage Museum—once the palace of Tsars. As insulation to meagre coats, their mother sews ‘found’ canvases into the linings.
Upon the death of their parents, the girls begin a new chapter in their lives with the hidden paintings cherished as mementos of parental love.
We accompany Katuska and Nina on an obstacle-filled journey through war and its challenging aftermath. We accompany the ‘found’ paintings, also known to some as ‘stolen art’, on journeys through Europe, England, the US and the Soviet Union.
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Transcendence
Captured at Gallipoli on 25 April, 1915, Sergeant Berenger, an uncompromising professional soldier, escapes Turkish imprisonment. He enlists the assistance of three unlikely co-conspirators: Ali, a simple Arab boy forcibly drafted into the Ottoman army with his brother, Mohammad; and Avraham, a Jewish merchant, who determines his future is no longer with the Ottoman Empire. Pursued by the sadistic Tolga from the Turkish prison at Fort Kilitbahir, Berenger discovers the date of the Turkish counter-attack on ANZAC positions. Berenger must return to the ANZAC lines to deliver the intelligence that a massive Turkish counter-attack will commence on 19 May 1915; and he must slip through Mustafa Kemal's 57th Turkish Regiment in order to do so.
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Trampled Grass
This novel is based on a historical account, going back to early 19th century when Great Britain defeated Napoleon Bonaparte, expanding the empire. That led to the need for considerable manpower. The captain of a ship is not only responsible for navigating the vessel skilfully, but should be a leader to all the naval trainees and junior officers. He should make right decisions which can be harsh, without emotions, for all. This novel tells a story of the kind-hearted Captain Fraser who led his ship to near-disaster on the Thames. After abolition of slavery, the need for farm labourers was filled by a 'new system of slavery' called 'indentured labourers from India'. This novel describes their suffering and what happened to them, which the world hardly knows about.
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To Regain a Legacy
It is in Paris during France’s pre-revolutionary Ancien Régime when gambler, socialite and renowned swordsman Napier Gerrard enjoys a life of luxury and leisure. However, his comfortable lifestyle is blighted by the troubled memory of a double murder when, as a teenager, he lived in England with his father, a fencing master to a Royal Duke. Worse still, he was falsely accused of the crimes and only escaped with his life by fleeing back to his native France.
Napier, knowing that he will never obtain peace of mind until he has done what he considers to be the right thing by his father’s memory, makes the momentous decision to return to England in search of his father’s resting place. He is aware that, with a large bounty on his head, he could expect betrayal at any time.
Once in England, fate intervenes to keep Napier in danger as a series of events come together to set him on a course that will test his swordsmanship and survival instincts to their very limits.
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To Have and To Hold
In 19th Century England, two small girls are ripped from their families and sold into cotton mill slavery. Lost, confused and alone, Emma and Susie find solace in each other's company. They search for freedom and identity as they battle the cold and miserable conditions and their place of nonentity in the mill. How will their dreams of freedom be achieved?
When not working in the Hell on earth that is the spinning-room, they are locked in the mill garret. Their owners recognize them as 'hands', implements of labour, rather than living, breathing people. Then, one night changes the course of each girl's life. After this one night of freedom Susie's restless nature cannot be calmed, and the two must learn how to survive their newfound freedom, and to discover who they are truly are.
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Time to Move On
It’s the end of the 1950s, Mary, an Irish girl, is nearly 16 years old, struggling with her bleak and lonely life in Western Australia, missing Ireland. Mary grasps at the opportunity of happiness and a different future without foreseeing the dire consequences that follow.
In 1970s, Harry, as a teenager, loses his parents in a car crash. Now homeless and jobless, he finds love while he is struggling with others’ expectations of him.
Each of them finding resolution of their situations – a story that carries you with the narrative, exploring the difficulties of life, infused with issues of culture, religion and identity.
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Thirty Pieces of Silver
The Roman Empire and the world is about to change and over the next several hundred years, millions will die as a result.
In the Middle East a child has been born – a child who will grow into a man who will eventually change the way the world is run. He is a man destined to fulfil a prophecy. A man who will start a global revolution. A man who will shake the very foundations of society. A man whose philosophy will be misinterpreted and twisted to give power to what will become one of the richest organisations on Earth. A man whose name will be used to justify the most horrific deeds this world has ever known.
Caught between the rule of mighty Rome and the power of the High Priests, this man wants to free his people and bring them closer to God. This man will become a legend.
This man is called Jesus.
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The Spirit of Badenoch
This book covers the environmental, historical and cultural changes to the land and inhabitants of a little valley in the Highlands of Scotland, Badenoch, stretching from pre-history to the cessation of World War 1. Bounded by the Monadhliath and Grampian ranges, with River Spey flowing through to the sea, the topography, environment and climate dictated the number of people the valley could support. Control over land and resources was fundamental in maintaining social relationships and the folk from Badenoch did it well. Australia and New Zealand provided an opportunity and a lifestyle that they could only dream of in far-off Badenoch. Land was the key. Some returned to Badenoch, having made their fortune, whilst others settled into their new homes; this book tells their stories and the story of the land they left behind.
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The Price of Pearls
During the Napoleonic Wars, England sent many soldiers and spies to France. Many soldiers and sailors had been captured and imprisoned for years, incurring wounds and disablement, even in prison. They could only hope their wives, lovers and other members of the family were well. They just hoped that when families heard they had been captured, it did not cause any problems, but it often did cause broken hearts and aristocratic titles to go to distant relatives, who were not always wealthy enough to maintain properties that had been in the family for generations. Thieving and murder became common. Estates were sold. Many families did not know if their sons were alive or not. Should their daughter marry someone else as they thought her fiancé was possibly dead? It wasn’t until after Napoleon Bonaparte was captured and sent to Elba that life settled down but many hearts were already broken.
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The Wolves of the Radfan
War is not a pleasant business. People die, cut to ribbons by bullets, limbs blown off by mines and roadside bombs. Not just the soldiers, but the non-combatants: young women, the elderly and children. 1963 to 1967 saw Britain fighting in a hostile and arid country, trying to stem the expansion of communism in the Middle East. On the ground, the ordinary soldiers, infantry, gunners, engineers and armoured regiments did what the British soldier always does – getting on with the job come hell or high water! Bomber’s story is written from real-life experience. Although Bomber, the main character, is fictitious, he is based on a combination of many soldiers. Many of the events took place as described but with the storyteller’s licence when melting them together. The Wolves of the Radfan, the largest tribe that straddled the then-border between North and South Yemen, started the war and the British soldiers put paid to the Wolves in 1964, but then came the push by the communists from North Yemen and it was then the contest started in all the brutality that war produces. Many acts of great courage have not been mentioned in the book, especially in the period from 1963 to the end of 1964, perhaps someone else will write about that. Fact and fiction, fiction or fact? This is a story of a normal British infantryman who faced combat and it was nothing like he had ever imagined.
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The Wind in the Grass
Life in the village of Hammerwell, situated in a remote part of Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, would appear, on the surface, to be a peaceful rural existence. Set in the period between the two world wars, the order of things is still very much as it has been for hundreds of years. But for Arthur Lever, life suddenly takes a dramatic turn. Set against a background of rural life, seed time, harvest, ploughing and lambing, The Wind in the Grass has lust, romance, cruelty, violence and sudden death. But worst is yet to come for the inhabitants of Hammerwell, insulated from the outside world by the grandeur of The Plain, they are unaware that their lives are about to be devastatingly changed forever.
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