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?

Communicating Internally for Maximum Impact: A Middle Eastern Perspective

In Middle East region, ineffective communication in the workplace is one of the reasons why many companies lose their clients, in addition to excellent employees. A lot of the employees resign due to the miscommunication inside the organisations in the gulf region. Good communication skills help to reduce the barriers erected because of language and cultural differences. Internal communication should be understood and practised by all levels, including managers, supervisors and beginners.

This book offers practical and adaptive tools and techniques for upward communication—as well as across and downward communication—to inform and influence others no matter where they fit in the organisational chart. The book will recognise the impact of stress on communications and in return it will tell how to adjust for it, develop and demonstrate better listening skills, allow yourself to understand the importance of perceptions, and explore the communication style differences and learn to flex your own style.

Community Nursing Stories

An evocative memoir that paints a rich historical picture of life as a district nurse in a close-nit rural community setting in the mid-1970s and 80s. The author presents a fascinating set of memoirs that capture the essence of a district nurse at this time.

Presenting the challenges of coping with a young family to live and work as an outsider within a community, winning trust, and respect, whilst adapting to the challenges of working in a rural community, before days of central heating, mobile or in some circumstances house phones. The memoirs present a series of heart-warming, encounters, portraying a picture of a committed nurse, becoming a community champion and visionary pioneer in the development of much needed community services.

The stories of engagement with all-age community members present a strong historical context of the nursing role. In some ways very different to current nursing practice, reflecting the evolution of nursing and development of nursing, medical and technological knowledge to underpin the principles of knowledgeable, empowered, and informed practice.

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.

Confessions of a Justified Hooker

Harrowingly honest and strangely uplifting, this is a courageous testimony written from the soul of a unique, if not peculiar, woman whose tale transcends political and legal struggles. So tragic, yet tremendously inspiring, her feats of strength take you into the dark heart of modern Britain that perhaps you have never seen before. It is a heartwarming fight of a gracious mother, desperate to get her son the medical care he so vitally needs, whilst his father seeks only to exploit him.

When faced with the greatest challenges of her life, she ventures a most ghastly and terrifying path to an uncertain future. There, her legion of clients become her unexpected support group. In them, she finds solace, exhilaration and, most importantly, healing. Rising from the ‘grime’ of Gorton, Manchester, Sandra breaks convention and rises into the sheets with the rich and powerful. Holding nothing back, the illicit encounters and rampant rendezvous, be they Premier League stars or Irish VIPs, all are weaved in. The layers of sacred promises, illicit secrecy and hidden intimacy are peeled back to reveal pleasure and purity. In the melting pot, her boudoir, those who have tasted her pleasures, become her story, her journey, her life…

Keep Calm and Kinky On.

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…

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.