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 Camera Obscure

Supernatural secrets; psychopathy; disturbing dystopias; vanity and Victorian graveyards. Each story, evoking an atmosphere of gothic classics, will take you on a journey through past, present and possibilities, where the familiar becomes strange. The new tenant above a bookshop uncovers a terrifying truth; a man looks out of his window to discover he is completely alone; a young man’s vanity ends up ensnaring him. You will anxiously anticipate characters’ fates, whilst reflecting on your own lives and experiences. It may lead you to speculate that there are many ways to be haunted, and that the most frightening spectres walk within us and among us. 

The Cedars of Beckenham

The Mystery of an Antique German Doll reunites members of a family torn apart during The Third Reich of Nazi Germany.

This family saga, starting in the leafy suburb of Beckenham on the borders of Kent and London, begins in 1930 in the comfortable world of four British upper-middle class families blind to the impending changes that are about to threaten not only their world, but everyone else’s world, too.

A doll belonging to the Abuthnott family becomes the catalyst that brings about two sides of the Rubenstein family, who were able to escape from Germany in the late 1930s finding refuge in the United States of America and in the British Mandate of Palestine.

Along the way, the horrors of the Blitz and the British struggle for survival are enacted out against the parallel Germanic horror of holocaust separation. The survivors in the United States, Great Britain and Israel adapt to a new world as it unfolds through the second half of the 20th century, until by the chance sale of a German Biedermeier doll at Sotheby’s in New York, their separate paths are brought together in 2017.

The four Beckenham families adapt to their changing lifestyles witnessing a rich tapestry of 20th century history taking the reader all over the world with its beauty, passion and prejudices.

The Chairman

India’s finest cricketer is found murdered in a Kolkata dressing room. Theories abound about who is responsible: match fixers, Pakistani fans or disaffected team mates? All eyes are on India until Australia’s best player also meets his demise in the cricket nets at the SCG.

It is Mike Dunn’s job to find out who is dismissing the world’s best cricketers. The mission takes him across the globe searching for a murderer or a group of assassins who are tearing the game asunder.

In a thrilling race around the world, Dunn finds himself a step behind at every turn until a chilling theory reveals itself…

The Chess Board Execution and Other Stories

The stories in this book touch upon the author’s own life and his sense of humour and wide-ranging interests.

‘By the Waters of Stepney Green’ is half historical recollection, half romantic dream.

‘Gilda’, a story set in Burma in World War II, will keep you reading well into the night.

‘Gareth’ is the story of a young man from orphanage to officer and tells how deep friendship can emerge from enmity, while ‘Chess Board Execution’ is a story of love, deception and revenge.

These stories will appeal to all readers who enjoy a mixture of genres and moods.

The Chinese Stone

Howard Wu’s insatiable greed puts the secret mountain villages at risk, and it must be stopped. Amid the bustling crowds of downtown, Choi An thinks he’s safe. But as he navigates the throngs of people, a sudden stab to his heart takes him by surprise. Without a sound, he falls to the ground, the victim of a ruthless attack. Follow the twists and turns of The Chinese Stone as the fight for power and control of a valuable resource unfolds in this action-packed thriller.

The Cleopatra Caper

“I want to present Cleopatra to the World,” Lady Stanhope sighed and reached for her purse. Two very young and inexperienced detectives, Flinders Petrie and Thomas Pettigrew, were unexpectedly presented with the case of a lifetime. Flinders and Pettigrew, recent graduates of Oxford and rivals of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, suddenly find themselves confronted with the task of finding Cleopatra’s tomb. The tomb’s location, as they quickly discovered, was protected by the adherents of an ancient cult. Their quest leads them to Cairo and Alexandria. They meet a mysterious woman, who is possibly the descendant of Cleopatra. Their story weaves between the ‘City of the Dead’ in Cairo and the ‘Mound of Shards’ in Alexandria. They discover that becoming a detective is more difficult than they imagined as students. Set against the background of the River War in the Sudan and written by an expert in archeology and Middle East history, readers will find this story a worthy successor to the Conan Doyle legacy. “Find me Cleopatra, and I will pay for all this….” 

The Collector's Dream Vol. 1

Embark on this soulful journey

with Donaldson’s collector's dream

to bless your being with his beautifully written poetry

allow yourself to experience his divine expressions,

genuine emotions, love for humanity and, his fascinating way

of rhyming his observations, knowledge, and spiritual wisdom

Embark on this magnificent journey

Of deep understanding and salvation 

Through gratitude, warmth, affection, loyalty, and positivity

Embark on this reviving journey for

each poem is a treasure

each poem will warm your heart

each poem will teach you a lesson

or you will receive a positive thought

that will set you eternally free.

– Leorah Mcnemir-Rohoman 

The Competition

Eight unlikely chefs thrust together, a washed-up TV presenter, a large cash prize and an unforgiving Northumberland landscape. Add to this a previously forgotten ghost from the past and what could possibly go wrong?

Introducing a new and daring competition that everyone is just dying to be part of. A brutal and often darkly comic tale about why chefs should never be left to their own devices. Scores will be settled, friendships formed (and lost) and all in the pursuit of fifty thousand pounds.

Will anyone live to tell the tale? Hunting and foraging for food along with plummeting temperatures and the risk of exposure, there can be only one winner.

The Confession

Ania was in turmoil.

She was feeling neglected and unloved. She knew she was being selfish, but her feelings were the only truth she knew.

Then a fateful opportunity presented itself and she couldn’t resist. Temptation had found her vulnerable and wanting and before she knew it, she was caught up in a short passionate affair.

And with that, she set into motion a chain of increasingly deviant and destructive events that crushed her sanity and threatened to take her very life away from her.

As her world spun out of control and her life crashed around her she found herself ever more lost and caught up in a vortex that she couldn’t get out of.

As things went from bad to worse even she didn’t know if she’d survive…

The Conversation Club

Centuries ago, the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten appointed a council of 22 custodians to foster the flourishing of the human spirit through the pursuit of knowledge, the advance of the arts, and covert philanthropy. Today, the London Chapter of that council is known as The Conversation Club. It is helmed by Esau Monk, who guards its activities and astounding wealth with ironclad secrecy, but its very existence and purpose are threatened from within.

60 years ago, in Nazi Germany, Wolfgang Ackerman smuggled 22 boys and a hoard of stolen gold out of the country at the outbreak of the war. Their destination: London, and The Conversation Club. Unknown to anyone but him, he has secretly substituted his own son for one of the boys and is haunted by guilt.

Now, in London, someone is carrying out brutal murders. The security services are convinced Islamic terrorists are behind the atrocities. Former FBI profiler, Dr. Ben Whisker, disagrees. He discerns something far more deadly than meets the eye. His recent fall from professional grace, however, means he is not being taken seriously. Realising that the impenetrable Conversation Club is the focus of the violence, he teams up with the Grand Master of the Club, Esau Monk, to figure out what the connection is.

The Cottage

This novel by Cornelius Buckley, follows the two previous collections of poetry. The Last Irish Romantic, was launched by Gabriel Fitzmourice, the noted poet, at the Listowel literary festival. He described the collection as a striking series of works reminiscent of T. S Eliot and Michael Hartnett. The book was praised by the famous Dublin publisher and poet, Pat Boran, as a “truly distinctive debut volume”, and the noted British poet Bernard O’Donoghue described it as “brilliant”. Cornelius’s second collection, Poems from Heartlands, was published recently. It was uniquely innovative in that it contained both printed poems of note, but also hand-written poems woven into distinctive artwork by the author. The colour edition received fulsome praise. It has won the Pinnacle Book Achievement award, the San Francisco Literary Festival award for Poetry; the Author’s Circle award for novel of excellence, the Firebird book award, the Titan award, and the Outstanding Creator award. The Cottage continues that innovative approach. The poetry scattered throughout may seem extraneous, but it is an essential part of the character of the protagonist, a poet and lecturer in literature. It is partly autobiographical. But the novel also owes much to Agatha Christie as a mystery and as such should keep the reader guessing to the end. But it is more than that; the author feels that books should operate on different levels, and The Cottage also embodies literary riches and philosophies that should challenge the reader. It contains theological material also which some might shy away from, but it is part of the character of the author as a priest, and the protagonist as a deacon. The general quality of the work and its mystery should offset any criticism and make this a must-read, full of fascinating byways and twists of the imagination which make this a major work of literary excellence like the author’s previous praised and multi-award-winning poetic art.

 Cornelius is a graduate of St. Patrick’s College Maynooth, and has a doctorate from Oxford University, where he specialised in modern American poetry. He has already published two prose works, Wheels of Light and Learn from Me, and is busy finishing two further novels, The Mountain and The Island. They should be published soon by whatever lucky publisher takes them up.