The Seven Letters

In her debut novel 'newly minted' author Jan Harvey brings readers a poignant and moving novel that weaves a fascinating series of deeply interwoven stories that proceed through the decades of wartime Europe and toward the present day.

Claudette Bourvil is a timid country girl who, after her recruitment by the French Resistance, is directed to work in Paris, as an undercover agent within a bordello that is operated by the calculating and hard Madame Odile.

Whilst she is at the bordello of Madame Odile, Claudette meets and falls in love with one of the habitues of the bordello, a German Nazi officer, Fritz Keber.  

He is a deeply complex man with secrets of his own, which, when she discovers them, absolutely horrifies Claudette.

The story progresses to England some seven decades later. It is 2014 and Connie Webber is a witness when her friend the playwright, Freddie March, ends his own life by suicide.

Matt Varney, a kindly stranger, who is also on the scene offers her his comfort and they become firm friends.

Matt offers to assist Connie in the task of sorting through Freddy's possessions and they discover a cache of seven letters which are the key to the mystery of his mother.

The letters lead them to Paris. There, they meet a former prostitute who reveals the story of a maid who worked at the bordello who was, in reality, an agent of the French Resistance.

Connie and Matt follow the trail to a quiet village in the Normandy countryside where they discover a terrible truth relating to the fate of Freddy's mother.

The book will be published in February 2017 at £9.99 by Matador.

It will be available for purchase here>>> https://goo.gl/zmYo4p.

The Universe is a Machine

The Universe is a Machine is a debut non-fiction work by Chartered Engineer James Hughes.

In it offers a new and unique explanation of the science of what might have happened during the Big Bang, when our universe came into being.

It is a novel solution to the problem of where all the antimatter went after the Big Bang, why it is still in existence and the reasons as to why it has never, at least so far, been detected.

It is written in the form of a treatise which explores the so-called "smoking gun" of a clue that points to there having been a distinct mechanical process that took place during the aftermath of the Big Bang, superimposed, as Hughes argue, upon the thermodynamic and nuclear processes that are linked to the evolution of the early stages of our universe.

It is the current orthodoxy that the antimatter was utterly destroyed in the events of the aftermath of the Big Bang.

However, Cambridge alumnus and chartered engineer James Hughes argues that this was not the case.

He has a unique explanation to what happened to the antimatter, where it is and why it has not -at least, yet!- been subject to detection.

This paperback book is published in paperback by Matador at £78.00, though a Kindle version is available for £68.00.

It is available for purchase or download at our shop>>> https://goo.gl/zmYo4p.

That's Christmas: The Funniest Stuff

That's Christmas: The Funniest Stuff: This is the latest book from Colin West and it's going to be a must buy Chirstmas gift for the children in your life!" It's...

Under the Knife

Under the Knife is a fascinating new book by autohr Gulzar Mufti.

A retired urologist with decades of experience in the UK and abroad, Gulzar Mufti brings his readers a wide ranging array of medical and surgical stories from all over the globe.

Some of the anecdotes are light-hearted, some dramatic,  some tinged with sadness, but they are all very real examples of what happens in medical establishments the world over.

It also shows the human side of the doctors, the surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and other healthcare professionals who look after patients to the best of their abilities and, sometimes who go the extra mile and then some in order to help the sick people who are in their care.

Read how Professor K was able to make a diseased appendix just 'pop out', how the Kashmiri barbers dealt with hair and also with other matters such as teeth, removal of earwax, draining of abscesses and circumcision, too.

Also read how a simple typographical error was, actually, quite well received and how not everyone a doctor meets should be fully trusted!

This book is a must buy Christmas gift for everyone involved in medicine and also, everyone else, too!

It is published by the Book Guild at the modest price of £8.99 and is available for purchase from our own book and gift shop here>>> https://goo.gl/AzQ0XD but please do remember you might need to use the express delivery option as it is so close to Christmas.

Portals of Discovery

Portals of Discovery is a fascinating new book by George Norrie, the second Baron Norrie of Wellington, New Zealand.

Lord George Norrie has had a fascinating life. He has served as a member of the armed services as a soldier, worked as a horticulturalist and is, by inclination, an entrepreneur and has served as a parliamentarian.

In his memoir which is frank and honest, he raises some very interesting points. For example he argues that the choices that we make during our lifetime should not, usually, be considered to be mistakes.

He concurs with the Irish author James Joyce, they are not to be considered to be mistakes, they are, "portals of discovery," or gateways inot new worlds and are opportunities for bus to learn more about life.

Lord Norrie is a delight as he does not take himself too seriously and employs a self-deprecating wit and casts an eye on contemporary life.

He details the story of his life that begins in the Gloucestershire of the Second World War, to South Africa, New Zealand and the Middle East.

He shares with his readers an important account of the vital role that the House of Lords plays in the examination and reviewing of new proposed legislation, pointing out some changes that he was able to introduce to legislation as it progressed through the Upper Chamber on key environmental matters.

His time in parliament was brought to a somewhat abrupt termination when reductions in the number of hereditary peers allowed to sit in the House of Lords was reduced, but he is still very active in helping to look after the natural world.

The key themes of this memoir are self-knowledge and the importance of looking for new understandings.

It is published by the Book Guild and in hardback it costs £14.95 and is available here from our own bookshop and gift shop >>> https://goo.gl/AzQ0XD, but do please remember if it is a Christmas present, do please use the express delivery option.

Broccoli and Bloody-Mindedness

This is the story of Antonia Lister-Kaye as she takes a highly illuminating look back over her roller-coaster of a life.

She was born prematurely and was not a wanted child, in army barracks in the year of 1931.

She had cerebral palsy, yet she had a mind that was sharp and she had what was described as "a sense of fun."

Her childhood was chaotic and tinged with rage, some naughtiness and a few escapades and narrow scrapes.

Somehow, and it has to be said, the odds were somewhat stacked against her, Antonia was able to attend university and after leaving university she took up a career as a teacher in London.

She discovered sex and found that she quite like it and, after a few exciting and exhilarating years she, perhaps unexpectedly, got married to Hugo.

This brought about adventures of their own, as Hugo took her off to live in the African country of Nigeria.

Some time later they move to South Africa where Antonia discovers apartheid and realises that she hates it, which brings her suppressed rebellious nature to the surface.

She decides that she will make her way into Black zones that are normally forbidden to white people.

How does she do this? By the simple expedient of selling coffins ad teaching black students.

The South African authorities find her attitudes if not in breach of the apartheid regulations, certainly somewhat disturbing so they "invite" the family to return to the UK.

Domestic tasks were beyond her -due to three small children- and she eventually suffers from a breakdown in her physical health, with resultant chronic back pain.

Eventually Hugo leaves her and things get a little chaotic.

She finds that teaching is now too physically demanding and so she takes the decision to retrain as a psychotherapist, which results in more years of work that she found utterly fascinating and rewarding, in the main.

In later years she has campaigned for the re-legalisation of cannabis for medical use and when asked recently by her doctor how she had survived so long she responded with the improtal line: "Broccoli and bloody-mindedness!"

The book is illustrated with photographs and it is an autobiography that really shoulds be bought as a  Christmas present for those who like autobiographies about real people.

It is published by Matador at £7.99 and is available for purchase here >>> https://goo.gl/AzQ0XD but od use the express delivery option if you ant it before Christmas.

The Conisbrough Chronicles

This book, written by McMullen Country, tells the history of the Conisbrough family down through the last 1,000 years.

Seen through the eyes of several different narrators, we read the history of this great family as they amble through the last Millennia as they interrelate and interact with other families and characters, often with utterly disastrous consequences. Usually for them and not for the Conisbrough family members, however!

We see how the family participated -even sometimes if only in vaguely tangential ways- with the great and the good and the small and the not all that good, really, figures of British history.

We learn of what things were really like in the Middle Ages (it's filled with stuff you probably never knew until you picked this book up)  the goings on (diverse and interesting)  at the Court of Queen Elizabeth I, what the English Civil War was like (at least from the point of view of the Conisbrough family) and the dark doings that took place during the Industrial Revolution.

We meet greedy people, mad people, sad people and bad people and the third part of the book brings us right up to date with the relations between the Conisbrough family and the modern world.

And the great thing is? The entire book is all culled from the fertile imagination of McMullen Country, as the Conisbrough family is a work of fiction!

He reports, somewhat gleefully, that his "proof reader said she had never read anything like it!" which he, probably wisely, chose to take as a compliment.

This book will make a nifty stocking filler this Christmas so please quickly your copy from our book shop, here >>> https://goo.gl/AzQ0XD. Probably better to use "express" options for delivery, now.