Perhaps a Jealous Foe

The action begins in 2000 with Louise looking at her past. Then it moves back to 1970, where Louise has everything a contemporary woman could ask for: a loving husband, two children, a beautiful home, a good social life. The family is comfortably off, and while her life is circumscribed by her domestic duties and her involvement with the church, she is content with her lot.

Then, she meets Nicholas, and everything changes. While Nicholas makes his attraction to Louise obvious from the outset, he is apparently as conventional as Louise and too inhibited to proceed with more than flirtation and verbal innuendo. 

The relationship between Louise and Nicholas develops slowly, because of the lack of opportunity, and because Nicholas seems unable to make up his mind what he really wants. When they finally make love, all is not quite as Louise had expected. Nicholas eventually also admits to the secret in his past which Louise has discovered by chance.

The story reaches its climax in a night of passion in which Louise, changes her mind, and exults in having finally got the man she loves so much.

Finally, the story returns to 2000, where the aftermath of that night is revealed.

Overview

An estate agent’s true stories of battles between buyers and sellers, plus a guide on where the world’s greatest treasure troves exist, and how to get them. This is also the story of a revolutionary sailing rig and, most importantly, the proofs of worlds beyond. To help his clients’ anonymity, Ian has placed this as a post-war romance, recalling what people paid for estates in those days.

Outnumbered by Daughters

The book is an adult fictional novel, based on a young man’s struggle with sadness, tragedy, complicated romances and family life. He attempts to bring up twin girls and an older stepdaughter as a single parent through their middle school years.

He encounters all sorts of problems that readers could relate to in their own personal life, involving mixed emotions and hardship, including his own complicated and failed romances on his journey through this stage of parenthood.

He has to deal with embarrassment and overcome all sorts of new experiences as he tries to understand the problems and needs that young girls have to face as they grow up. 

The girls’ teenage years present him with a completely different set of problems, but he does at least have better success with romance, resulting in a wife, new daughter and stepdaughter finally completing his family.

Out Of The Dark

Imagine you could no longer use the internet or your mobile phone!

This is the scenario in 2050 when the oil runs out and Britain can’t produce enough electricity.

Drastic power cuts then become the norm, and many people lose their jobs and their homes.

The story is seen through the eyes of two women. Jess, in her thirties, is tied to a job she hates and has to live apart from her husband and young son, while Gertrude, in her seventies, has not left her flat for twenty years and cannot contact her son in Australia.

Their lives are linked, but neither woman has a real concept of the struggles that the other faces each day. Both of them are seeking a solution to get out of the dark.

Our Lost Boy

A tragic secret, a broken family, a lost boy – who was Edward, and what happened to him?

Life for Jen and her family, including 11 year old, autistic son Ned, hasn’t always been easy, but things are improving. Ned is thriving in the right school, and getting the support he needs to navigate his way through an alien and sometimes frightening world.

But Jen is troubled by something from her past. She’s haunted by a nightmare that has disturbed her since childhood, and she’s increasingly uneasy about her relationship with her cold, distant parents - what are they hiding from her?

‘Our Lost Boy’ follows Jen’s search for the truth, taking her back to her childhood home in Yorkshire where shocking memories are reawakened.

Jen and her mother, Maureen, have been pulled apart by a tragic secret, but when the truth is out can they mend their broken relationship? Can Jen forgive Maureen, and can Maureen forgive herself?

And what about Ned - can the 21^st century offer him, and others like him, the future that Edward was denied?

No Standing Room Only

Mykonos and Athena – A Furry Tale

Harry Parkman is a high-flying management consultant with an apartment in Chelsea and a beautiful girlfriend who wants to marry him. His life trajectory seems fixed until he finds two desperately sick kittens whilst holidaying in the Greek Islands. Having spent a lifetime avoiding cats because of a childhood allergy, he cannot leave them for dead. Harry saves the kittens and in so doing, embarks on a journey that saves himself.

A heart-warming adventure for anyone who has loved a pet more than people.

My Name is Savannah

This is Savannah’s story, as told by Savannah. A puppy born on an Island in Greece was abandoned by her mother at a very young age. A family heard her crying and rescued her. Once again, through circumstances, abandoned. Life was not easy but Savannah became friends with a little dog named Bethany. They became inseparable and had many adventures together, some happy, some heartbreaking. Their adventures came to an abrupt end when they both fell sick. They were found by the ladies from the dog shelter. Not a particularly happy time, but at least Savannah and Bethany could cuddle up together. Hope was on its way as Savannah was destined to be adopted by a family in England. Would she be with Bethany? Would she survive the hazardous journey, by van, ferry and boat? Would she be happy with her new family?

Mr Meeks and the Family Bubble

Mr Meeks is a “little” OCD, and very set in his ways, everything he does has a set routine, any deviating from the routine caused great anxiety, much to his annoyance.

Mr Meeks spent most of his adult life taking care of his elderly parents; when they died, he was left on his own, and that was just the way he liked it. 

 …Until he met a young damsel in distress one evening, after he had consumed a few alcoholic beverages. Little did he know, but his whole life was about to be turned on its head. 

He found himself in very strange waters, hardly able to recognise himself.

Suddenly, he was living in a full house and enjoying the noise, having fun, and enjoying the laughter, being confrontational on someone else’s behalf, and enjoying the responsibility, loving others, and loving the feeling.

This is a story one of emotional rollercoasters, huge surprises, shock revelations, some sadness, childhood sweethearts and, above all, love.

Modern & Medieval

A medieval monarch finds himself unexpectedly in the twenty-first century with so much to learn to adapt in a new world. Finding new friends and having new experiences he settles in this new place but soon tragedy forces plans to change. The former monarch finds his way in the present day and struggles along the way but eventually begins to plot his way back to his rightful place. Alliances are formed and broken as a country is divided and the main goal of government is to find a way to bring the nation together. Help arrives in the form of the former monarch whose reign ended more than five centuries earlier but his influence is not well received across the whole country. The former monarch works with the current prime minister to put plans into action but their relationship is far from straightforward and at times threatens to divide the country even further.

Making Old Bones

Gramwell Glade is Making Old Bones.

A care home, purpose built around a Georgian folly castle façade in Essex, Gramwell Glade is making a fortune for business developer Akin Akindele who, armed with an MBA foresaw that high end care homes were going to return significant returns on his investment.

It’s Making Old Bones of Pauline Graves’ career since moving from hospitality to head up the staff at Gramwell Glade and putting her misplaced hopes in a liaison with Akindele.

It’s Making Old Bones of the dedicated carers who support its sundowners while supporting their own families on the small fiscal returns their efforts bring on the ‘living wage’.

It’s laying old bones to rest. For many of the residents their time at Gramwell Glade is their first experience of surrender when it comes to real life responsibilities. That onus now falls to their ‘children’ who now have their parents’ Powers of Attorney and who are handing over the funds that would otherwise satisfy a mortgage sufficiently large enough to buy their own castle.

If we know someone who works in the care sector or spends their twilight years in a home, if we visit family or friends who have moved on into residential care, make no bones about it, something like the Gramwell Glade experience could come to us all.

Mabel Murphy

It’s 1920s London and the world is in a deep economic depression. Times are very hard and the city is rife with unemployment, poverty and disease. One family in East London
have managed to keep themselves afloat, housed and fed, despite having one parent with a long-term mental health condition, but that is all about to change as their teenage daughter is catapulted into a series of life events which are traumatic, heartbreaking and shocking but which make her become a much stronger and more resilient human being than she ever dreamed possible.
This is a harrowing story of innocence, shame, hostility and vicious cruelty from the very people who should be caring for those in need, but it is tempered with love, hope and the potential to change one’s situation given the right opportunities.
Although fictional, this was a true story for many women of that time and is based on several older women whom the author met and supported whilst an NHS nurse in the large hospital system.