The Blackpool Landlady and Son

When 18-year-old Helen Ashton meets Joe McCarthy on the moors of Northumberland she instantly falls in love, certain that her humdrum life had taken a new turn. And for several years it did.

On the eve of the First World War, Helen learns that she is pregnant with Joe’s child, but before she can tell him, he enlists in the army and is despatched to war. She never heard from Joe again, and believed him dead.

When their son, Ben, was born, Helen, in mounting desperation, agreed to marry a retired police inspector with whom she had two children.

In time, her husband of convenience leaves Helen for another woman, and she finds herself on her own in the coastal resort of Blackpool with three young children with only a penurious future to look forward to. But fate intervenes, and with growing confidence Helen turns their home into a holiday hotel and begins welcoming guests. From one she learns that her beloved Joe had not died, but had been discharged into a sanatorium where he languished, a shadow of his former self, depressed, uncertain, confused … and lost, lacking the courage to reconnect with Helen.

By the time of Helen’s death, Joe is living a reclusive life, and his son, Ben, married with children of his own, takes over the Blackpool hotel. It is Ben’s wife, childhood friend Mary, who tracks down Ben’s father, finally persuading Ben to meet him … on the day Joe dies.

The Cedars of Beckenham

The Mystery of an Antique German Doll reunites members of a family torn apart during The Third Reich of Nazi Germany.

This family saga, starting in the leafy suburb of Beckenham on the borders of Kent and London, begins in 1930 in the comfortable world of four British upper-middle class families blind to the impending changes that are about to threaten not only their world, but everyone else’s world, too.

A doll belonging to the Abuthnott family becomes the catalyst that brings about two sides of the Rubenstein family, who were able to escape from Germany in the late 1930s finding refuge in the United States of America and in the British Mandate of Palestine.

Along the way, the horrors of the Blitz and the British struggle for survival are enacted out against the parallel Germanic horror of holocaust separation. The survivors in the United States, Great Britain and Israel adapt to a new world as it unfolds through the second half of the 20th century, until by the chance sale of a German Biedermeier doll at Sotheby’s in New York, their separate paths are brought together in 2017.

The four Beckenham families adapt to their changing lifestyles witnessing a rich tapestry of 20th century history taking the reader all over the world with its beauty, passion and prejudices.

The Enemy at Home

After the funeral, as Jack Brown stood by the grave of his father, Bill, his eyes displayed different feelings, true feelings, of anger and disgust towards his father as he muttered, “Rot in hell you old bastard.”

Jack couldn’t forgive his father for the misery he had caused him and his friend, Harold, for their arrest as deserters during World War One, when he would have known full well the penalty for desertion was the firing squad. The same went for the death of their mothers, and his sister’s escape to Canada.

Will his feelings ever get resolved?

The Hidden Spaniard

Spring 1998 –

Norah, an American woman journalist, currently adrift in her life, heads to Belfast, Northern Ireland to cover the unfolding Peace Accords. In addition, she is also unravelling a family legend.

In another spring, 410 years past, Spain prepares the greatest naval fleet ever assembled. Europe is abuzz with rumours of an invasion to unseat the “English Jezebel”, Queen Elizabeth I.

In 1588s Celtic Ireland, a 15 year old pagan girl is an apprentice seamstress earning her way and experiencing history’s surprises as a shipwrecked, Spanish Soldier is washed ashore on a local Irish beach.

“The truth must become a legend to survive,” it has been said. Did any Armada shipwrecked survivors leave any descendants in Ireland? Quite possibly.

What history has downplayed, due to a collective Irish guilt, may indeed be the truth.

Religion, magick and politics intertwine in this tale, as the omission of the historical truths are finally revealed.

A 16^th century event has echoes to our current era, when history is hijacked by the victors.

Yet, eventually, “The truth will out.”

Even if that truth arrives centuries later.

The Munich Pursuit

Fiction based on fact, this a story of the search by the Germans and British to establish how far the other has reached in the development of a jet-engined fighter plane prior to WW2. In UK, the Germans use a dissident South-African-born engineer who lost both parents in the Boer War and harbours a resentment against the British government. Dogged police work eventually exposes him. In Germany, the British lose their experienced agent and are forced to use two reserve officers to fill the gap. The two are discovered by the German Security Forces in the act of taking photographs. They are forced to flee across Germany and France with their information, the Germans in hot pursuit. The German Security operatives have orders to kill them and retrieve the photographs. The Munich Crisis of 1938 with the threat of war causes travel chaos and in part, hinders both sides in the pursuit.

The Sash and the Crucifix

Lance-Corporal Edward Vickers, was born on the 12^th July 1900, in the Tigers Bay area of Belfast, under the shadow of Harland and Wolff Shipyard. Edward and his four friends watched some of the greatest ships ever to be built, as they towered over their streets. These five friends made a playground out of the shipyard and got to play on the decks of the greatest ship ever built, The Titanic. As they got older, WW1 shattered their lives like countless others. What they had to endure was hard to comprehend, but this first hand story had to be told. Not only was his story about WW1, but WW2 as well, where he had to fight his way through Belgium and France yet again, to get to the Dunkirk beaches.

Through his life he had some unforgettable ups, but they were overshadowed by unthinkable downs.

Edwards’s story is a remarkable one; of life through the wars, abroad and at home, and it’s a story that spans 105 years of his remarkable life.

The Seed of Freedom

In the heart of Dublin during the tumultuous Easter Rising of 1916, two young boys, Sam and Christy, grow up under the care of their widowed mother and aunt. As they navigate their way through troubled times, the brothers find themselves drawn to the cause of Irish freedom, joining the Volunteers in their fight for independence. Immersed in the savage Irish War of Independence, Christy serves in the Dublin Brigade while Sam becomes a member of the ASU and later joins the legendary ‘Squad’ under Michael Collins. Against the backdrop of 1920s Dublin, Sam finds love when he meets Kate, only to be captured and locked away in Kilmainham as his first child is born, released only when the Truce is signed. The brothers, united in their commitment, follow Michael Collins into the National Army, only to face the tragedy of the Irish Civil War, a horror that still haunts Irish society to this day. Upon their discharge from the Army in 1924, Sam, now a family man, and Christy seize the opportunity to reclaim their lost youth on the football fields of Dublin, Ireland, and Europe, where they excel as part of the famous Bohemian FC team of 1927/28, ultimately reaching the pinnacle of international football for the Irish Free State.

The Wartime Adventures of Harry Harris

The Wartime Adventures of Harry Harris follows a lieutenant in the Bartonshire Light Infantry, from the outbreak of World War II until it ends, and into peacetime.
He has many hair-raising adventures and emerges a hero, much admired by his soldiers and his girlfriend, Mildred.

The Spirit of Badenoch

This book covers the environmental, historical and cultural changes to the land and inhabitants of a little valley in the Highlands of Scotland, Badenoch, stretching from pre-history to the cessation of World War 1. Bounded by the Monadhliath and Grampian ranges, with River Spey flowing through to the sea, the topography, environment and climate dictated the number of people the valley could support. Control over land and resources was fundamental in maintaining social relationships and the folk from Badenoch did it well. Australia and New Zealand provided an opportunity and a lifestyle that they could only dream of in far-off Badenoch. Land was the key. Some returned to Badenoch, having made their fortune, whilst others settled into their new homes; this book tells their stories and the story of the land they left behind.

Transcendence

Captured at Gallipoli on 25 April, 1915, Sergeant Berenger, an uncompromising professional soldier, escapes Turkish imprisonment. He enlists the assistance of three unlikely co-conspirators: Ali, a simple Arab boy forcibly drafted into the Ottoman army with his brother, Mohammad; and Avraham, a Jewish merchant, who determines his future is no longer with the Ottoman Empire. Pursued by the sadistic Tolga from the Turkish prison at Fort Kilitbahir, Berenger discovers the date of the Turkish counter-attack on ANZAC positions. Berenger must return to the ANZAC lines to deliver the intelligence that a massive Turkish counter-attack will commence on 19 May 1915; and he must slip through Mustafa Kemal's 57th Turkish Regiment in order to do so.

Treasures of War

Leningrad, 1941.

Germany’s Operation Barbarossa is tightening its noose around the city. The Neva River and Lake Ladoga freeze. Few supplies reach the city. Thousands suffer from cold and starvation.

Katuska and Nina Koslov, young daughters of a dedicated museum employee, shelter in the basement of the great Hermitage Museum—once the palace of Tsars. As insulation to meagre coats, their mother sews ‘found’ canvases into the linings.

Upon the death of their parents, the girls begin a new chapter in their lives with the hidden paintings cherished as mementos of parental love.

We accompany Katuska and Nina on an obstacle-filled journey through war and its challenging aftermath. We accompany the ‘found’ paintings, also known to some as ‘stolen art’, on journeys through Europe, England, the US and the Soviet Union.

Under the Whispering Filaos

In October 1957, Jeremy left his island paradise to become a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, leaving behind, Maureen, the young girl he intended to marry as soon as he had completed his training. Unbeknown to him, family quarrels instigated by his controlling mother caused a breakdown in communication as their letters went undelivered, leaving the young couple to think that the other had broken the vow. Finding herself pregnant, Maureen leaves the island to live with her married sister in South Africa so as not to bring shame to her family.

The Cold War is in full swing and the “Wind of Change” about to sweep the continent, soon bringing with it some of the toughest battles since WW2, on the borders of the country. Maureen, married and now widowed, returns to her island with her married son and small family. What had become of him, she often wonders. Did he ever think about her and their child? Had time erased his love for her?