The GRiPPENHAM Tales - The Hidden Truth | Austin Macauley Publishers

When young Arthur learns that his friend Tom has stumbled onto a crime scene and had a close encounter with the strange perpetrators, he rushes to visit his friend and to learn more about the events of the day. Then, a dark stranger pretending to be Tom's Uncle Jeremy leaves a mysterious package containing a mind-controlling potion for Tom and so begins an adventure which none of those involved could have possibly imagined. The theft of some of GRiPPENHAM's famous Copper Beeches, the potion left by Uncle Jeremy and the appearance of strange folk bring suspicion and excitement to the otherwise calm and peaceful village of GRiPPENHAM. As the plot deepens, Tom, Arthur, Arthur's twin sister Ivy and their cousin Mildred are taken into a world of mystery and intrigue in both their native GRiPPENHAM and over into neighbouring Nuffingham. Can the four young people, aided by their eccentric professor Uncle Max, stop the wicked Jeremy Suregrip from developing more of his potion, which will enable him to take control of the minds of those who drink it? Will they find an antidote in time to save Tom's parents, who have drunk the potion, and will the Copper Beeches be returned to their rightful place in GRiPPENHAM?This is an adventure filled with colourful characters and told with wry wit.

Born in Brighton in 1946, John now lives in Reading with his wife Angie. Although most of his working life was spent in finance, he has been musically active since the sixties.
Since retiring he has completed this, his first novel, and continued to develop and enjoy his musical projects producing several new albums.

Customer Reviews

5.0

1 reviews

Laura Sarjeant

I was kindly sent this book by Austin Macauley Publishers in exchange of an honest review.

With my first experience of reading a book from the genre of Fantasy not being a very positive one I was a bit dubious about reading this one. However, I was pleasantly surprised. I was hooked right from the beginning, I couldn't wait to find out what would happen next.

The author has made you feel like you're listening to him telling the story, he does this mainly by having little sections in italics which are aimed at the reader. I found this to be a great touch to the story and I did have a few little chuckles whilst reading them.

There was one section of the book where I felt the author had gone off track a bit explaining in great detail certain aspects that to me seemed unrelated, however when I started the next chapter I soon realised how wrong I had been and how you needed it to keep you guessing as to what was going to happen.

I would be interested to read about more adventurers of Arthur, Ivy, Tom and Mildred in the future.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to start reading Fantasy books as I feel it's a great introduction to the Genre. However anyone who decides to read this book would not be dissapointed.

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