Collectanea Cygna

Collectanea Cygna is a collection of 25 short stories, ranging from humour to pathos, from fantasy to science fiction and time travel, and from love stories to tragedy. Each story is complete in itself. 

Travel back to the Second World War or forward to a virtual reality environment. Empathise with the loss of loved ones or rejoice in the finding of one’s true love. See inside the mind of a murderer or laugh at the antics of the newly retired. This book will take you on many journeys.

Collected Poems

Having lived in New Zealand, Britain and Germany, the author is amply experienced to comment on various aspects of British, New Zealand and German culture. Currently living in Germany, he visits Britain frequently. His interests include indigenous cultures and music sponsorship in Britain and abroad.

Here is a book of poems that will amuse and educate adults as well as older children. The poems cover a range of topics from young children to threatened species, and poems from classical Greek and Roman mythology. There are different cultures portrayed in a positive light while the best ideas taken from the worlds of psychology, stress management, and values reflecting religious principles are incorporated in an often amusing way.

If you want an easy read on the train or to relax with at home, this is a book that will entertain and give a feeling of hope and happiness in a world that often presents us with difficulties or perplexing problems.

Colour Coded: The Black Bullet

Having a dark past, she left it all behind… At least she tried to. When Bullet moved from Prismatic to Colour Coded, her previous boss, Neon, did everything in his power to win her back. But, knowing the kind of man he was, she did not accept any of his pleas. After his begging turns into threats, Bullet and the rest of Colour Coded are forced into a dangerous chess game as a means of not only protecting their own, but protecting their pasts. In the end, a choice must be made. What means more to her, her Colour Coded family… or her horrific history she has shielded for so many years?

Colour Coded: The Silver Sparrow

Sparrow’s stress and anxiety is close to boiling point after Neon’s latest move, and it is beginning to take its toll on the rest of Colour-Coded.

Somehow, they must get one step ahead of Neon.

While Sparrow not only deals with troubles of the mind but of the heart as well, tempers are flaring, relationships are faltering, and Neon continuing to elude them all sets their teeth on edge.

Will Sparrow’s aggravating behaviour drive them to fight harder? Or will it merely make him the weaker link and the easier target with Colour-Coded?

Condemned

What happens when the “Circle of Life” goes horrendously awry?

Murder- we see it splashed across the tabloids all of the time. We try and escape reading about the horrors of appalling crimes by clicking out of such articles or by physically closing our newspapers. It’s easier not to think about it; it’s best to scroll down to another article; it’s better to turn the page.

But what if you don’t have the option to “turn the page” and escape the atrocity of murder? What are you supposed to do if you’re Susanna, blissfully ignorant at home until you receive the phone call on that devastating night, telling you that your son has been murdered? What are you supposed to do if like Susanna, it’s your child’s smiling face splashed across the tabloids with corroding words like “Murdered”, entwined with his image? Who are you supposed to turn to, when like Susanna, you are the mother who has to face her son’s killer in Court?

Susanna is facing the unendurable; the extent of her agony is incomprehensible. As a result, people don’t really know what to say to her. People appear to tire of the strained small talk and silences; one by one, those around Susanna are retreating.

It is time for Susanna to reclaim her voice and finally be heard. 

The very least that we can do is listen.

Conduit

A woman's quest to rescue the child victims of human trafficking leads her on a perilous journey fraught with danger. Will her faith and the gift of "sight" inherited from her beloved grandmother be enough to sustain her on an epic voyage of self-discovery and good conquering evil?

Connect the Dots…

A political crime thriller, set on the beautiful Caribbean Island of Barbados.

The Head of Government is shot on his return home from an official visit overseas. Who is behind the assassination attempt and how will they benefit from undertaking such a dastardly act? What’s at stake for several individuals, should the Head of Government die or be unable to recover sufficiently to lead his party into the next general election? An entertaining, fast-paced novel about politics, power, prestige, and personal gain. Ambition and greed play their role in the intrigue, as national law enforcement and security agencies, led by Barbados Intelligence Bureau (BIB) operatives, seek to find those responsible. The pursuit is relentless, at times unconventional, but always legal. The culprits may surprise you. Will they be brought to justice? In Connect the Dots… the twists and turns are many along the way…

Consenting Adult

Jonathan is hired to teach a creative writing class at the local college. Out of nowhere comes an idea: what if there was a modern-day Moses and he heard that God wanted him to rewrite the Ten Commandments now? What would they be if they were written today?

Jonathan is intrigued by the idea but his students are sceptical. So, sit back, enjoy the journey, and see if the Commandments get written. And, if they do get written, find out what the present-day Commandments end up being.

Consequential Urges

Pablo (From Til Death We Do Part) is still fighting to come to terms with the excruciating loss of two wives, but in his ongoing frustration, he starts to resort to violence, something he has formerly eschewed his entire life. He is a strong and powerful man, and seems to be in control to start with, but even so, he is conflicted within himself and seeks the help of a psychologist to help him understand and control his urges. However, the law of unforeseen consequences visits him with devastating effect, and he soon finds his actions snowballing beyond anything he intended or could have imagined and before long, he shockingly finds own life in the balance. Can fate send him a surprise guardian angel to salvage him from himself and his own folly?

Conspiracy of Ravens

On a Leicestershire battlefield in 1485, the course of British history changed. One man, a minor Welsh noble, was instrumental in effecting this change, enabling the establishment of the new Tudor dynasty. This little-known historical figure was Rhys ap Thomas, who claimed descent from Urien Rheged, one of the knights of King Arthur. Born in Carmarthenshire in West Wales, he had spent his early years in Burgundy with his father, in exile, as had two other men, Henry Tudor and Richard III. The three young boys were to meet many years later on the battlefield, where the lives of all three would change forever.

This is the story, set in the turbulent period of the Wars of Roses, of Rhys ap Thomas, whose claim to fame would be ‘the man who killed Richard III’.

Contemplation and Other Poems

This book explores a fresh interpretation of everyday subjects through poetry. The author hopes it will help instil a way of seeing everyday events differently, or, at the very least, make you curious and help you form an opinion about them.

Conversations with No-One

What do quarks and bosons have to do with faith? What does having a binary brain do for our sense of morality? Are the decisions we make in our life an expression of free will or simply the mysterious determined directives of creation? Are we self-determining creatures or just puppets?

Conversations with No-One is a collection of poems which trace the journey of one man, beginning in the seminary yet leading irrevocably into the worlds of neuroscience, quantum mechanics and genetics. It recounts a desperate search for personal meaning and purpose which turned into a three-decade long conversation with our humanity, from Gilgamesh’s search for immortality to Milo Wolff’s theory of the wave structure of matter. It reflects upon a journey through the wonder and horror of human existence, listening to the stories as they wrote our history, listening to the authors as they grappled with what it meant to be alive and conscious, to hear ourselves searching for answers to the questions which burned in our hearts and minds, to marvel at our remarkable ontology.

Conversations with No-One is a poetic, theological redaction of our self-apprehension informed by modern science, a view which challenges the very foundation of our cultural identity yet is in complete harmony with it. It is an invitation to ‘religare’, to go over again, and a reaffirmation of the ancient maxim ‘nosce te ipsum’ – to know yourself.