King's Spur

Occasionally Emily could see the glint of the river, some thousands of feet below before the clouds closed in again and she was forced to stop, breathing heavily, the shotgun still clutched to her swollen stomach. 

She tried not to look down, putting her faith in the good Lord.

But the good Lord had better keep out of her way until she had finished what she had to do that night!

Lasseter's Truth

Jack Johnson is both lucky and unlucky. He survives the Vietnam war as a decorated helicopter pilot, marries the girl he left behind, and lands on his feet at Australia’s leading advertising agency, as a launch pad to spectacular success in the industry. Lucky, you might say.

But luck can change. Jack is hit with a bogus criminal charge that chases him into the Great Australian Desert, in a quest for Lasseter’s fabled gold reef.

But Jack is not the only one looking. A mysterious Chinese company called Triple Eight is buying up leases in the desert, and people are dying.

Back home, he leaves not only a heartbroken wife but a beautiful and very determined daughter who has had her own problems. Expelled from Australia’s most prestigious public school, Tess Johnson vows to clear her father’s name.

Lasseter’s Truth follows them both as they take on the odds. A story that ranges from the greed of the nineties, into a famous legend of Australia’s outback, with a compelling climax for our own time.

Letters from Another Galaxy

Prepare for an out-of-this-world experience in Letters from Another Galaxy. When toolmakers from an outer cluster of the Milky Way Galaxy arrive on Earth, they’re in for a surprise. Instead of the aggressive, sex-addicted species they expected to find, they encounter humans with complex emotions and desires. The Messianic aliens are on a mission to convert humanity, while the Bruin capture humans for genetic experiments and keep them as pets. But why do these alien species resemble monkeys?Meanwhile, the Space Gypsies boast an extraordinary sense of smell, even in space, and the Nautica are seeking new habitats for their species, with plans to seed the Red Sea. As if that weren’t enough, the novel explores the story of an abandoned shipment of human slaves, dumped on a cluster planet and left to fend for themselves. Turning feral, they embark on a journey of self-discovery, exploring what it means to be human.But the alien humanoids aren’t all benevolent. Some are bent on raping and pillaging, leaving the reader to wonder about their true motives. Letters from Another Galaxy is a gripping, thought-provoking novel that challenges our assumptions about extraterrestrial life and what it means to be human in a vast, mysterious universe.

Life According to Brian

Life According to Brian chronicles 44 stories of mishap and misadventure of a scale unparalleled in modern man. Disguised in comedy to protect the seriously guilty, the story follows Brian’s escapades traversing the world and captures not only the lunacy of life but the luck involved in avoiding one’s own death.

The guidebook for the mentally impaired includes: poaching, drugs, imprisonment, kidnapping, poisonings, alien hunters, crocodile suicide and much, much more…

The sorry episodes are being played out via a game of chess. God and Charles Darwin, seeking to save mankind, are plotting Brian’s untimely demise. The winner of each play gets to choose the method of death. Constantly interrupted by visiting deities, kings, queens and E.T., the two main players are frustrated in their attempts to have some peace and play the game, with a nice cup of tea and some Mr Kipling cake.

Send the kids away, euthanise the cat, find a comfy chair, pour a pint of the finest whisky…have a reliable psychiatrist on speed dial.

Come inside and enjoy the ride…

Making Old Bones

Gramwell Glade is Making Old Bones.

A care home, purpose built around a Georgian folly castle façade in Essex, Gramwell Glade is making a fortune for business developer Akin Akindele who, armed with an MBA foresaw that high end care homes were going to return significant returns on his investment.

It’s Making Old Bones of Pauline Graves’ career since moving from hospitality to head up the staff at Gramwell Glade and putting her misplaced hopes in a liaison with Akindele.

It’s Making Old Bones of the dedicated carers who support its sundowners while supporting their own families on the small fiscal returns their efforts bring on the ‘living wage’.

It’s laying old bones to rest. For many of the residents their time at Gramwell Glade is their first experience of surrender when it comes to real life responsibilities. That onus now falls to their ‘children’ who now have their parents’ Powers of Attorney and who are handing over the funds that would otherwise satisfy a mortgage sufficiently large enough to buy their own castle.

If we know someone who works in the care sector or spends their twilight years in a home, if we visit family or friends who have moved on into residential care, make no bones about it, something like the Gramwell Glade experience could come to us all.

Master Builders

Chris finds himself in a foreign environment and form, ten light years from Earth after his untimely death. His mentor, Brian, explains the new order of things. He discovers that he is now in a mechanical shell and bemoans his loss of some body parts. Chris joins three other junior builders, that have been tasked to seed the universe with newly tailored and tested sentient beings. Chris gets into trouble with the Sentient Species Test and Evaluation Facility management but is then instrumental in saving Earth from an Orion reptilian attack. He interacts constructively with the galactic federation based in the Pleiades, leading to the resurrection of an old treaty between Earth’s United Nations and the federation.

Memories and More

The basic idea of this book is to share life experiences, and thereby give comfort and encourage smiles, by showing my own and others’ reflections on different life-situations. I am sure that many of them are comparable to those that occur in your life, or to others around you. By sharing experiences, we all learn something. Women are probably sharing thoughts more often than men. Many of the events in this book have also been discussed in female groups. They have not all been personally experienced by me but are the consensus from these fruitful discussions. Now I am pleased to share them with you. Among the experiences discussed in this book: heartbreak, the #MeToo movement and my own experiences, divorce as its complication as a parent, and my own thoughts about the pandemic. I also share with you my thoughts about the aging process that we all must endure, if we are lucky enough to live that long, since life is still a gift given to us all. We ought to remember that and enjoy the journey.

My Unhealthy Obsession with HRH the Anti-Christ 666

I’ve been in love with HRH since I was eight years old. I prayed to Jesus every night that he would be my husband one day. Little did I know that he was the Anti-Christ until the Apostolic pastor who would preach on the nightclub strip revealed it to us. I was afraid but loved him. I prayed for the Anti-Christ but was molested by a paedophile instead. That paedophile was named Phantom and he ruled Belial. Belial is where I lived. I wanted to escape Phantom so desperately. I prayed and my prayers were unanswered until my friends in Navajo Nation helped me get across the portal through the Lukachukai Mountains. In the Lukachukai Mountains there was a waterfall portal called “Water is Life” where one can escape to the land of Eleutheria. Eleutheria is where His Royal Highness (HRH) lives. I hope one day I can meet him. I hope one day he loves me and fights against Phantom and rescues me from Phantom’s rule. I hope Jesus forgives me for my unhealthy obsession with the Anti-Christ.

Oklem

“Just because the war is over, doesn’t mean the story is.”

What happens after a 10-year war? Unity brought the Mortal, Fire, Ice and Earth Nations together to defeat Skull, a pirate army desperate to merge the supernatural world with the mortal.

19-year-old Azar Geminus finds himself at the centre of a bizarre, supernatural mystery. With the war at an end, and his heart broken, his only goal is to reunite with his parents. But this proves more challenging than expected when he learns that they have gone missing. Whilst the city he has lived in all his life begins to expose the darkness that dwells within, Azar finds himself changing in ways he cannot control.

As betrayal, mystery, and danger close in around him, Azar realises that there are three sides to every story: the Nations, the supernatural, and the truth. As one war ends, another, much more personal, is just beginning. And when the fate of the Nations rests on lies, who else can he rely on other than himself?

Older

A sociopath managing an aged care facility: What could go wrong?

Precocious and pretty Maxine Gilbert is a clever and talented nine-year-old, adored by a doting father. She is also cruel, sadistic and without remorse, delighting in manipulating others and torturing small animals. When her mother is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, Maxine is disgusted, not just by her mother’s disability, but by the inconvenience it brings. Watching a nurse care for her mother, Maxine learns that nurses can hurt or heal. Maxine decides to be a nurse when she grows up.

Forty years on, after countless complaints against her nursing in various clinical care settings, Maxine scams a job as Managing Director of an aged care facility, Treetops, and the residents are in for a rough time.

Under Maxine’s management, physical and medical restraint of residents is encouraged, and neglect, poor hygiene, and restrictions of residents’ liberty, nourishment and medical support are exhorted. Frightened, depressed, and malnourished residents are left isolated, locked away, and laying in their own waste. They develop excruciating infections, suffer illness, and even die. Maxine faces rising antagonism from Treetops’ residents, and their friends and family. 

A new carer at Treetops, Seleena, who recently escaped an abusive marriage, cannot stay silent. Along with warning residents, and others, Seleena writes a letter of complaint. After finding a suspicious lump in her breast, could Maxine, who always hated illness and vulnerability in others, finally learn compassion? Or will she continue her ruthless ways?

One Week in 1952

The story is set in June 1952 and describes one week of action between Tom, 8 years old, and his Aunt Siobhan, 18 years old, who looks after him while his parents are forced to leave home. An unexpected event enables them to holiday in Kent, where exciting adventures befall them both. Throughout the book there is a surprising comparison between the way of life in the 1950s, much of it based on historical fact, and that of the modern-day world.

Onvoy: A Tale of Pain

A tale of a world at the brink of falling apart being abruptly thrust into a new beginning – life changes forever. Our hero finds a mysterious and powerful sword, something that amplifies his own emotions immensely, engaging them into physical manifests of a devastating heat that scorches everything, even himself. With so much hate, loss and sorrow on his shoulders, our hero must contain himself and not let go of his emotions lest they become too much and send what’s left of his world crumbling to ashes.

Life might never be the same again but that doesn’t mean it’s the end – only an opportunity. An opportunity for what? That is the decision of the holder. Where others not know what to do, feeling lost and hopeless, our hero has a purpose – to learn more about this mysterious power and sword which has entered his life, find his family and take back the apocalypse no matter the pain.