Bonfire Night

A bonfire blazes in Outback Australia. Two men sit all night in its glow, commemorating their dead friend. He blew his head off with a shotgun. Bonfires burn across Lewes, England, commemorating Guy Fawkes Night. As crowds of revellers lurch through the streets, a boy stands teetering on the ledge of a bridge, waiting for the train to pass below. Two different lives, two different places, one story to tell.

Book Seller

This book is meant as an anthology of minimalist short stories that I have published throughout the time in literary magazines, using a minimum of means to create the artistic background. In terms of style, I could mention Jack London, J.D. Salinger, Raymond Carver, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, as authors that influenced my career as a writer. Though seemingly simple, the short stories in Book Seller are carefully crafted, like exquisite pieces of jewellery and each, in turn, can represent the appropriate starting point for other challenging books. I let my characters speak for myself and give a decisive role to suggestion. This leads to a lyrical outline of the events, described as if my characters sometimes dress themselves in poetry from time to time. A moment in the existence of a character, a snippet of a moment, a coincidence, may be enough to make the beginning of a novel or the beginning of a short story similar to those found in this book.

Border Wars

The Kurils, the border islands in the north of Japan, have been in dispute for many centuries. Taken as reprisals by Russia at the end of World War 2, they were eventually returned in the year 2056 in exchange for favourable trade deals across the Northern Pacific region. Just over a century later, the islands were taken again, by the Russians, and the entire population was relocated to Hokkaido, the northernmost of the Japanese Home Islands.

This is the story of the deception, and the duplicitous method used by the Russians to steal and keep the islands and their plan for the newly discovered oil riches that lie below.

What the Russians did not factor in, in their carefully created plan, was the meteoric rise of the career of Jackson Nakagawa; the man who was to eventually become known as the most fearsome and innovative ground forces commander for more than 200 years.

Never overawed by any assignment, his innovative methodology was to see the decisive defeat of the Russians in what was to become known as the Border Wars; but what no one could foresee was the war that was to come just a few short years later.

Brainwashed

Gabriel has always viewed his Uncle Seanna through the starry-eyed wonder of childhood, regarding him as nothing less than a hero. Their reunions are filled with excitement, a testament to the bond they share. But as Gabriel grows older, he begins to see a different side of Seanna – one that’s dark and manipulative.

As Seanna’s influence over Gabriel grows, the young man becomes ensnared in a web of deception and malevolence. However, when Gabriel finds love, his girlfriend recognizes the danger that Seanna poses. She sees the manipulative hold Seanna has over him and becomes determined to intervene.

Can love break the chains of manipulation? And will Gabriel discover the true nature of his once-beloved uncle before it’s too late?

Breaking News

Tim Jones is a man with everything. He has money and is popular with the ladies, so I guess you can call him a lover of the night. However, he just does not get paid.

There's one other thing that Tim has that everybody wants. Tim has a big secret. The entire city of female news anchors wants to find out the full story on this man. Some of them will succeed in getting close to him, but many of them will fail. The anchor woman that gets the story on Tim Jones knows she is going to get the best breaking news ever.

Stay tuned because the best breaking news is coming your way. Don't go away; we will be right back with more breaking news.

Breaking Stones

The phenomenon of human potential is never beyond our sight.

An opportunity is always offered to people. Sometimes in a mysterious way. Whoever ignores or rejects it will never truly experience life’s journey. Staying on the same path is to constantly relive the same day. That’s why exploration embodies mankind’s natural need to deal with the secrets below the surface. Although the facts about us as human beings speak in an understandable language, this doesn’t mean we’re not an enigma to ourselves. Understanding oneself is a very demanding process, similar to an autopsy. Not a physical autopsy, but a spiritual one. Discovering the anatomy of one’s soul cannot be done abruptly. Moments of inspiration will make the realization of whether we are controlled by our consciousness or our subconsciousness easier. Hiding behind a heavy veil until the very end is not truly living.

Sometimes a mere piece of paper under a windshield wiper with just three words and a phone number can change your life instantly.

The hero of this novel who only refers to himself as “The Recorder” dared to call a number left on a piece of paper beneath his windscreen wiper. He sensed an opportunity. A few weeks later, a telegram arrived:

IT’S TIME. IT’S YOUR TURN NOW. MOVE NOW!

A trip to an unknown estate marks the beginning of an adventure, and he begins writing the history of his life.

Breath of God

We’ve crossed the border and are in the Republic of Ireland. I’m wondering whether I’ll see snow again, all over Ireland, falling on every part of the dark central plain, on treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and on Shannon waves. Would I ever again read Joyce?

“Sit there,” Thomas says. He looks over his shoulder at William, says “Come on,” with a directive nod of his head and gets out of the car. William gets out and the two stand at the front of the car where I can see them talking. Their talk becomes animated with much hand gestures, and head noddings, and jerkings. They come back to the car, but instead of taking me out, get in.

“Stanley,” says Thomas.

Mary Ford has asked Stanley Eigerman, a Messianic Jewish detective, to find her son Stephen, who has been made to disappear during the troubles in the Belfast. For 21 years Mary has grieved for her missing son, and in taking the case Eigerman gets more than he bargains for.

Breath of God is a novel

Written in language that elevates the soul

Is an anti-depressant

Has a theme that speaks across the ages

 To each of us

Living in a world of violence, fear, and pity.

Breeding

A strain of vampires with super strength, a sixth sense, and the ability to shape change, who can kill in seconds.

It is a race against time to find a way to capture all of them and destroy them. But how?

In a sleepy town in England close to the southern coast, Carlos and his loving wife Tanya and their teenage son Lewis are put through the worst nightmare they could ever imagine: a plague of vampires. They must not only fight to save their lives but the whole town. No one is safe, not even your children. Your blood is not the only thing they need.

Brett: ‘Love of My Life’

Sometimes a girl’s dream is to have a safe home.

Steph’s escape is listening to her Queen records and dancing at the discos. It is the ’80s; music keeps her mind safe – it is the only thing she trusts. At 16, she finds love and friendship in a bikie called Brett. She never knew her first love would be the ‘love of her life’.

Brett is as damaged as Steph; tragedy seems to follow them. He is the only person who ever believed in Steph and her dreams.

However, with no money and no family to help her, Steph hits obstacles at every turn – with sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

Will Steph ever escape and follow her dream?

Bright Shadow

This is the story of Katherine Plantagenet, self-proclaimed “daughter, sister and aunt of kings” who endures extraordinarily traumatic reversals of fortune, as her life swings through wealth and adversity.  A glittering future as an English princess is swept away by the untimely death of her father, Edward IV, and the usurpation of her brother Edward V's throne. Surrounded by murderous intrigue, conspiracy and ambition, Katherine and her sisters fear what lies in store … The pragmatic marriage of the eldest, Bessy, to the victor of Bosworth, Henry Tudor, brings an uneasy peace to Katherine's young life but the shadows of suspicion and rebellion continue to swirl around her.  

Katherine witnesses first hand the events that plague her brother-in-law's reign. As a political expedient, she is given in marriage to William Courtenay, heir to the Earl of Devon, but Henry Tudor's paranoia soon falls upon her beloved young husband who is imprisoned in the Tower. An intelligent and resilient woman, in a world where men hold all the power, Katherine fights her way alone through a tense decade that ends in personal tragedy. With a vow of celibacy as her chosen route of self-preservation, Katherine continues to tread a wary path of survival ... until the charming Benedict Haute enters her life. However, the failure of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to produce a living son changes the way any Plantagenet is viewed by the king; Katherine knows her royal blood could cause trouble for her family.

Brighton Schlock

What happens when a biker drag queen uncovers an evil trafficking plot, with the help of his dominatrix side-kick from the flat downstairs; a certain type of wart invades a hospital ward; your teenage GBF turns out to be related to you; shredding machines and other devices take on a life of their own; and horny gargoyles abseil into cocktail parties – all in one of the nation’s most louche hotspots? And just who are these two young boys, skulking through many of the tales? With shared locales and dramatis personae, Merryman Downes’ Brighton Schlock is a fast-paced, surreal, happy, sexy, sad, and ultimately tender suite of interrelated tales where intrigue, horror and seemingly magical occurrences affect the well weird residents and enclaves of Sodom-on-Sea – or Brighton, as those of us who love it, call it.

Oh – and did anybody mention the astral body-snatching?

Broken Link

Owen Link, working as a hitman for the mob had one job to do, little did he know this job would lead to his undoing.

Now on the run from the mob and the law, Owen must prove that although several murders he may have committed, this one was not done by his hand. Running out of options Owen turns to an old friend, Robert, for help. Now working for the F.B.I. Robert would hold Owen’s fate in his hands.

Going against his better judgement Robert decides to help, unaware this would uncover secrets he thought had been buried long ago. Keeping Owen out of jail, however, would prove difficult when Robert and his partner Charlie, realize that this murder holds many similarities to their existing case. Now on the case, will Robert help Owen escape, or use him to save himself from the demons of his past?