A round-up of book signings, author interviews, news and events.
Perhaps one of the most memorable sights in the Second World War was the arrival in Scapa Flow of the Home Fleet after the successful sinking of Scharnhörst in the last week of 1943. Harry Semark was one of the few civilians privileged to witness it. This and other of his eye witness accounts, remembered with such clarity down the years, add value to the record of what was a monumentous six years in the history of not only these isles but most of the world.
Travis’ father was a failed soldier, a coward and a heartless bully who tried to disown his son. Now Travis is determined to shame him by becoming the soldier his father could never have been – through joining the Parachute Regiment, the élite of the British Army. His restless urge to prove himself takes him from country to country and from army to army, where he battles with enemies both external and internal until he is finally able to put horror and tragedy behind him and find honour, love and peace. ‘The sounds of the battle were like some crazy symphony, orchestrated by a mad composer and led by an even madder conductor who had decided to play all his heavy brass instruments at the same time and all of his percussion, bass drums pounding amid the deafening clashes of cymbals. His instruments were automatic rifle fire, hand grenades, grenade launchers, claymore mines, light and heavy machine guns and mortars. For vocals he had the screams of the wounded and dying.’
‘A killer story, with a strong emotional core, powerful themes that will touch hearts and a believable protagonist’ – Kaye Jones, History in an Hour.
Terry Warren began his career in industry as a humble apprentice draughtsman during the adventurous 1960s. A few years later, an opportunity to make money on the side by sub-contracting the making of printed circuit boards allowed him to discover a talent for entrepreneurship, and it wasn’t long before Terry had embarked on a new and much more lucrative career in project management. Working in the Middle East and in senior positions with businesses on both sides of the Atlantic followed, and by the time he was in his 50s Terry was the head of one of Britain’s top two project management consultancy and training companies, a business which he had founded and built from scratch, pausing along the way to build a successful industrial recruitment company. Now in his 70th year, suffering with Parkinson’s disease and happily married to his fourth (and last!) wife, Terry looks back on a colourful and eventful career and personal life.
Nikki Rollinson’s life has often seemed to her, and possibly to others, to be a ‘complete shambles’, following a series of traumatic events which included years of domination and abuse by an evil cult leader and illness and loss, leading to a major breakdown. But through it all she has clung to the certainty that God has a purpose for her in life and that He is there constantly for her and for all of us. She believes He is continually communicating with us, but that many fail to recognise His voice. Not a Complete Shambles is a frank and honest account of Nikki’s spiritual experiences and of her own very powerful relationship with God, highlighting God’s humanity and announcing a wonderful celebration to come.
What is limiting your progress in life – your family, your friends, your work? Your past failures? Your own self-doubt? Your lack of faith that God is with you? No More Limits to Your Destiny has been written to show you how to live your life to the full, how to fulfil your true destiny regardless of what is happening around you. You can do it! Almighty God created each and every one of us to have power over our own lives, not to do just what others expect. Renew your thinking, your attitudes, your faith, your relationships with those around you and there will be No More Limits To Your Destiny.
This is a book of poetry. The subjects are mixed, some personal. Others observations and some from the heart. Glyn believes there is something here for everyone. He was born in Coventry many moons ago he started writing poetry when he was 50. Why, he just don’t know, but he enjoy doing it! He now lives by the coast in Skegness.
Never work with children or animals tells of John’s early career as a child actor, when he appeared in various stage and radio productions, as well as playing parts in several dramas on BBC Television such as The Four Just Men and The Quatermass Experiment. It goes on to tell of adventures working with a host of entertainment stars of the 1960s, 70s and 80s as a producer/director, including Jimmy Edwards, Marti Caine, Billy Fury, Bob Monkhouse, Peter Goodwright, Dusty Springfield, Danny La Rue, Patricia Hayes, June Brown, Sacha Distel, Chris de Burgh, Lesley Garrett, The Beatles and Mark Knopfler. The later chapters tell how, with the help of a legion of household names from the entertainment industry, John set up the Michael Elliott Trust as a charity dedicated to rescuing abused donkeys and providing a sanctuary for them. The book features a foreword by June Brown and a personal message from his lifelong friend Dame Judi Dench.
The defeated are not always destroyed. In the immense science-fiction-fantasy universe of trolls, elves, humans, dinosaurs, gnomes and goblins, Molock’s Wand is the epic sequel to The Elf War. When a sudden rebellion by the slaves under her command destroys her Dark Elf stronghold and forces Eloen, the Halfling daughter of the cruel Molock, to flee into the wasteland of Aifheimr she vows vengeance on the Light Elf-led alliance… Leaving a bloody trail of death and destruction across the realm and eventually stowing away on the world-crossing vessel known as the Spellbinder, Eloen escapes to the peaceful Light Elf homeland of Haven in search of a formidable weapon buried alongside her brother. If claimed, this weapon will allow Eloen to perfect the crude race known as the Dokka’lfar and continue the reign of terror that her father started. It once again falls to the High King Peterkin to renew old alliances and form new ones, as well as enlist the help of some unexpected old friends, to rebuff the onslaught of Eloen’s tyranny. But as the pursuit begins he finds that Eloen is always one step ahead and she is getting ever closer to plunging the world into her own breed of darkness…
Mister Sharptooth is a reprint of an original children’s book published in 1903, by GW Dillingham, publishers in New York. It’s richly illustrated by little known artist Robert H. Porteous and written by Joe Kerr. Mister Sharptooth is a children’s story of a bad wolf and a good boy, 64 pages, all in colour with illustrations, it was originally described as ‘a most charming and attractive picture book. The story itself is unique in conception, the drawings are beautiful in design, and are both humorous and pathetic’. Robert H. Porteous was undoubtly a talented artist and examples of his work for the American war effort, World War 1 posters for U.S. Victory and Liberty Loans can be seen at the Tutt Library, Colorado College, Colorado Springs.
One freezing February night in 1940, fifteen-year-old Alicja Goral, her parents and younger sister and brother were dragged from their home and forced to board a cattle train to be transported over a thousand miles to the wastes of Siberia. They were just one of many thousands of Polish families sent to labour camps by Stalin and his NKVD after the Soviets seized their country at the outbreak of World War II. They became ‘non-persons’, forced to work from dawn to dusk in freezing conditions on the most meagre rations. Ultimately the Gorals and the Radomskis were among the lucky ones – they managed to survive their ordeal, return to Europe and find new homes in post-war England, where Alicia and the family found peace and security. Alicja, now 89, has finally told her shocking, heart-rending story with the help of her daughter Teresa.