A round-up of book signings, author interviews, news and events.
The World Under the Wood
When Corey and his sister Teigan go exploring in the woods, they meet a tiny little man who introduces himself as Archie the ermp, one of a happy band of small people who live far underground. They follow their new friend through a hidden door in a hollow tree and down into his secret home – and on the way they find they have become almost as small as Archie. They meet his family and his many ermp friends, and soon find themselves having such a good time that they completely forget to go home…An enchanting story for six to nine-year-olds.
Toad is about to get married, but his plans are thrown into disarray when he is snatched from the lake where he lives and taken far away. With the help of some camels and their keepers he makes his wayback to the lake, encountering some dangerous and life-changing moments along the way. But will he get to his wedding on time? A delightful and heartwarming story suitable for readers of all ages.
Daliah Husu is a transgender writer and poet whose work focuses on themes of love, self-acceptance and spiritual and emotional fulfilment. Her lifelong struggle with gender identity, sexuality, social acceptance, and substance abuse has inspired her to share her remarkable story.
Living the life of her dreams won’t be easy – especially since she was born male. But her dream life may yet come true – if she truly wants it.
In this raw and emotionally charged memoir, Daliah Husu declares her trans womanhood with an honest and authoritative voice. Searching for her true identity, yearning for her mother’s acceptance, and desperate to find love, Daliah shares her painful, yet enriching journey into self-actualisation and womanhood – a journey that starts as a young boy growing up without his father or mother in the slums of Santo Domingo, and who later transforms into a young woman obsessed with the attention of men, forced into sex work, and haunted by alcohol and drug abuse.
Remarkably, I Am Woman emphasises that in the midst of our loneliness, suffering and darkness, our hopes and dreams continue to illuminate our path to personal freedom, survival and ultimately love.
Richard Westcott has written this book to record, mainly for the benefit of the next generation, some of the history of his family and, in particular, of the struggles and difficulties his forebears encountered when living and working in the farming communities around the foothills of Exmoor in more challenging days. By collating and assembling his own and relatives’ recollections of the last century and material from local history, he has painted an intriguing portrait of 20th century life on and around Exmoor. He also tells how he left the area to further his career and became a successful city financier, while never losing contact with his West Country roots.
Jim Emerton is a philosopher and a poet as well as an internationally known pigeon racing expert. His travels around the world and his explorations of the natural world near his home have given him endless material as he muses about the wonders and foibles of nature and the folly of man. His verses and epigrams cover everything from pigeons to pop stars and from stars to spirits.
“We are all less than specks of dust, mere minnows in what is in here and what is out there.”
After leaving school at 15 in 1950, John Wells began an apprenticeship with one of the country’s leading pipe organ builders. On completion of National Service he resumed his career as an organ builder, which took him around the United Kingdom and on several occasions across the Atlantic, allowing him the priceless opportunity to meet and be reconciled with the mother who had left home when he was just six years old.
Ultimately John joined the Civil Service, helping to maintain, repair and replace the many organs and pianos in military establishments, prisons, British schools and government offices at home and abroad. In the decade since retirement he has become a specialist in American ‘duck stamps’ and conservation stamps, a subject in which he has become an acknowledged expert. His first book was an authoritative specialist publication, The History and Local Post of Rattlesnake Island, Lake Erie. This, his life story, is his second.
How are we to please God and learn how to do what He tells us is right? The author sets out for us what God’s approval means and how we can earn it. Quoting extensively from the Bible, she explains the importance of faith, obedience and giving if we are to please God and do His will. This book is a wake-up call to Christians who are not yet on the right path.
Mary has only just buried her husband when she opens a letter which appears to reveal that he was hiding something from her – something which will change her world. Emily’s world has already been changed by a holiday pregnancy. How can she ever find happiness without the child which she had longed to bring up as her own? And what is the secret of Hilda’s white wicker chair? These seven stories are all about women, and all deal with the big issues of life – love, marriage, loss, grief, deceit, disappointment and getting your own back.
For 15 summers, Rosalind Scott and her husband went cruising, usually in the company of her mother-in-law Lilian. Invariably Lilian managed to put her own inimitable stamp on the holiday by means of everything from staged accidents, exaggerated bouts of sickness and luggage mix-ups to queue-jumping and run-ins with customs officials. Now Rosalind (or ‘Roslin’ as Lilian always insisted on calling her) has woven together her memories of those cruises, along with stories of encounters with everything from gypsies and self-appointed aristocrats to dragons and hurricanes.
