Recommended Reads
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Love, Labour and Loss
Who knew what the wide-mouthed seven-year-old you see before you would go on to encounter as an adult?
Can any of us be fully prepared for the life that we are to embark upon?
How much of this is in our control or predestined?
This is not just one woman’s story of how she arrived at 50, at a crossroads which proved crucial. It is your story too.
If you have ever experienced any form of battle with mental health, physical illness, trauma or relationships, then this book is yours too.
It is quite simply a story of how love can prevail, how labour must not define or crush us and how loss can be a catalyst for change.
This is a book ‘half full’, not a book ‘half empty’, and offers to be your friend as you travel on your own journey.
£14.99 -
Psalms for a Lost World
For thousands of years, the world has been enthralled by the Psalms of David – timeless words that have offered comfort, challenge, and inspiration across generations. I began to wonder what it might look like to capture that same spirit today.
This collection explores the idea of modern Psalms, written from the perspective of a contemporary Psalmist trying to make sense of the world around us. Through these reflections, I hope to bridge ancient wisdom with modern experience, inviting readers to see familiar struggles and hopes in a fresh light.
£5.99 -
The Beginning
Before the beginning of time, the Eldest God created the Lesser Gods. They then all turned to the creation of the worlds. They created the stars, the moons and all the worlds of the universe. When all was completed, they took their rest.
As they looked upon the world below them, darkness was seen creeping across the surface. “What is it that creeps across the world below us?” they asked the Eldest God.
“It is something that tries to turn everything it touches to evil. It will go throughout the world trying to maim and destroy,” answered the Eldest God.
“It should be destroyed,” the lesser gods decided, but the eldest stopped them.
“It cannot ever be completely destroyed. It must continue with this world on the path that has been appointed. But someone must be chosen to be the one to fight the darkness at the appointed time. Which of you, therefore, wishes to take up this weighty position?” he asked.
The lesser gods shifted uneasily, but not one of them stepped forth to take up the position. The eldest was angry at this stance. “I will travel this world, then, and choose a man from among the inhabitants of this world. A man who shall have the power to defend this world against all evil.”
The lesser gods looked at the eldest, shamefaced. “So be it!” they intoned.
£13.99 -
The Rock, Into the Ocean and the African Penguin
Glenda McLean has written short stories of the Wild Life in Africa from her own experiences in the wild. She has a love of all animals both on land and in the ocean.
The purpose of these short stories is to share her experiences with children who do not have the privilege of visiting the wild, giving just enough information to spark their interest and open their minds to find out more.
These stories aim to help children appreciate what nature gives us, and in turn pass this onto their children. We can all constantly be learning from the whole of creation, and hopefully become better stewards of our precious planet.
£7.99 -
Caenis and Caeneus
“A story about a god.” That’s how Northrop Frye defined myth. But the Greek myth of Caenis and Caeneus is less about the god Poseidon than about his paramour, the nymph Caenis, a “lesser” god whose favour he grants to become a man. As Caeneus, perceived male, she fights valiantly in war and is later elected king. This story takes up only a few sentences in Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths.
In Caenis and Caeneus, Paul Matthew St. Pierre writes it large, shifting the setting from Ancient Greece to the First World War and making the nymph a Birmingham chambermaid, Celia Richards, who becomes a man when she impersonates her twin, Cedric, a deserter from the Brummagem Guard, and goes off to war in his place.
In France, she distinguishes herself in battle and daring reconnaissance and search and destroy missions behind enemy lines, a woman taken for a man not through magic, the hand of god, or a transformation, but through performance, her ingenious portrayal of Cedric to save him from the gallows. Celia Richards is a new kind of war hero, a woman capable of doing all a man can do, only better. She makes the supreme sacrifice, giving up her life for her brother, heeding the call of king and country.
£11.99 -
Because You Were There
“Reminders of you are everywhere, but you are nowhere, and this absence of you is forever.”
As the finality and aloneness of her husband’s death started to dawn, Sally realised the only person who would have understood her feelings of loss was him. In the silent spaces that were left behind, she started to write to him, aware of the absurdity of what she was doing. Her letters, intended only for them, stopped as the process of recovery began, but sometime later she shared them with her new partner. He felt that the letters provide a rare, at times brutally raw and honest chronicle of the early stages of grief that could be of help to others still lost in the early stages of bereavement when a return to a full life seems impossible.
She hopes that by publishing her letters, she will provide hope and support to others struggling through the grieving process.
This second edition benefits from a postscript in which the author looks back on the process through the lens of the twelve years that have elapsed.
£6.99 -
Annabel's Garden
When Annabel Marchmont decided to go on her little adventure to Honfleur in France, she little thought that she would uncover a continuing hatred and suspicion between certain French & German residents. So long after the 2nd World War, her plan to uncover what had happened to her great-aunt Daisy after her marriage to a German doctor in Himflow during the war also revealed surprising and very disturbing events that would have a great effect on her life.
£7.99 -
Pigeon
Start your day with the simple joy of having a bicycle to ride, to explore, and to share. You may be searching for a chance to be part of something greater, but perhaps money is tight.
Still, ride your bicycle and feel the wind on your face; one day, everyone will know your name. Each day, your name will be recognized, as free as a bird.
I dedicate my life to understanding the places and the people along the way—they may not be the last, but they could be the leaders ahead of everyone.
£5.99
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