500 Days

How different could the world have been, then and now, if lead-ups and events surrounding the Second World War had occurred vastly differently? What if different alliances had been formed through dramatic circumstances and, subsequently, the tyrants had been unable to wield their evil powers?

In the latter half of the 1930s, Russia and Germany are going through the motions of getting on well with each other until a series of “events” occur. A spectacular explosion kills many fascists including Hitler and the Russians decide to seize the moment and invade. Britain and France declare war on Russia and become allied to a Germany under new leadership. There are more shocks when Stalin disappears just when the Russians seem on the brink of success.

Germany, however, has a great deal of support and there are great sea powers, especially Britain, who begin to demonstrate their vast reach. One of the smallest navies in existence also has a big say in subduing a mighty power.

54 Days

Angel is a career girl working in publishing, loves her job, loves being single and has no kids, lives alone and is the only child of her parents Arthur and Rosaleen Mayflower; Angel is the apple of their eye and thrives on the success she has achieved for herself with the hope their daughter climbs the career ladder even further one day, or so they think.

Angel has two best friends, Linda and Helen, and they all constantly enjoy nights out meeting new men and having a really good time letting their hair down whenever possible. However, one night proves that going out isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as events take a turn that nobody will ever forget as hearts are broken and families torn apart.

One man, three women, a coma and death on the menu.

Could jealousy be the cause? Or something more sinister, who knows?

A Blessing And A Curse

These poems invoke waves of emotions, pulling you in before spitting you out – exhausted, and never the same as you were before. They will open old wounds and help to heal new ones. They will force you to confront your own experience and that of those around you. These poems helped repair my soul and regain my spirit through heartbreak, abuse, mental illness, and loss. I hope they can do the same for you.

In a sea of darkness, know that you are not alone, and that it’s okay to not be okay.

A Book of Short Stories

Do you like pirates, dragons, curses and mysteries? What about magic, or talking cats? Then welcome to A Book of Short Stories where all this is possible, and more. Read on to find out what happens to the mysterious village of Thorn, or do battle with Princess Fabiola Ulrike; will she succeed in her quest, or will she be doomed forever? And whatever did happen to that talking dragon…?

A Book of Songs and Poetry

Life and death, battles and war. Fathers and sons, mothers we adore. Babies and children, people we love. Those that we have lost who watch from above. Hopes and fears, wisdom and truth, innocence, and carefree youth. Autumn, winter, summer, spring. Nymphs, doe deers, nature and mysterious things. People lost and people found. Those that reach out to help others unsound. Lost paths and opportunities. Restless souls and obsessive entities - All in a book of songs and poetry.

A Bouquet of Fish Bones

The unhappy narcissist is threatened by the loss of beauty. The sophisticate takes reward from the geometry of desires. The eccentric form defective passions. The restless spirit seeks out a series of liberating falls. The daydreamer is charmed by planetary coincidences. The womanizer falls victim to fatal attractions. The loner finds amusement feeding his inflated imagination with scenes of mystery. The awareness of mortality leads them to the expression of passions, and mistakes.

The carousels of all these people’s little panics perpetually rotate, each circle closes for another to open and the tyranny of existence continues to be summed up in the agonizing question: the eternality of the temporary or the temporary eternity?

Against a background of the universe’s vast mirror, to what extent can the instantaneous, the insignificant and the random leave any trace on time’s relentless flow, giving another dimension to eternality?

A Bridge in Time

Maddie Coles, disillusioned, 40-something housewife, wakes immobile and in darkness, unaware of the catastrophic illness she has suffered.

During this static time, Maddie recreates subconsciously her life from the very first day of birth in 1965. A life created from real memories and forgotten youthful hopes and dreams, which lead her to question and re-examine every aspect of her life so far.

When medical science reawakens her 25 years later in 2037, the world as she knew it is unrecognisable and alien to her. She must come to terms with the devastating losses and extraordinary surprises, and reacquaint with family and friends of an almost forgotten past. She must also learn to live in the real world again. As Maddie travels this deeply personal, sometimes funny, heartwarming and often painful journey she finds inner wisdom which gives her strength to overcome the difficulties of her new life and determination to value everything she has regained by returning to it.

A Cape Town Decameron

The plague struck the City of Florence in 1348. A contemporary poet and writer, Giovanni Boccaccio, imagined a group of fashionable young people fleeing the plague and spending a “lockdown” on an estate in the Tuscan countryside. They entertained themselves by telling stories. Of course, the tales were all written by Boccaccio himself and he published them in 1354 under the title The Decameron.

When the Covid-19 pandemic produced lockdown in Cape Town, author Stanislas M. Yassukovich decided to emulate this idea, and wrote a collection of over 20 stories which he circulated to a group of family and friends – all in lockdown in various parts of the world. These are the ones his first readers liked best.

Boccaccio’s Decameron contains some one hundred tales. This collection is more sparing of the reader – just as the Covid-19 pandemic has fortunately been more sparing than the 14^th century Plague.

A Careful Death for Some

Merrydale is a small village. Nothing ever happens there.

A fundraising team of six villagers decide to hold a summer event of a Safari Supper. Selected houses hold different meal courses but Death visits one of the houses on the night of the supper.

More deaths follow. How are they connected and what do they have in common?

With the help of some of the villagers, the fundraising team decide to hold their own investigations as the police appear to be at a loss in finding any connection between the victims, who have died in completely different ways.

In the meantime there is a bail absconder who is hanging around the village. Is this person connected with the deaths?

The village sleuths need to find some answers before anyone else dies.

A Case of Gravity

To Christian Simpkins, time was of the essence. His old friend, a rather eccentric rotund scientist had been abducted from his own facility in Cornwall, England.

Simpkins was on the trail, piecing together tiny snippets of information to steer him onward into the unknown. Others also desperately wanted this scientist, they wanted his knowledge and they wanted a particular little prototype that could seemingly defy gravity.

Slowly, too slowly, Simpkins begins to unravel the workings of those that took his friend and their murderous intentions. Highly skilled in their deadly arts, they turned their attention to this worrying thorn in their side. Simpkins’ survival plan was based on luck, circumstance and very little else except his strangely tuned mind, a strategy somewhat lost to the seasoned professionals on their deadly errand.

A fast-paced windmill of twists of thought and cryptic subterfuge.

A tale of intrigue, death, love and unerring friendship set in today’s world of unforgiving hard truths.

A Collection of Reflective Poems

Every poem tells a story, and the poems in this collection are no exception.
A poem like ‘Jessie and Josh’ is based on the author’s early memories, while he and his friend – both passionate writers – were the inspiration for ‘Two Old Boys’. ‘In My Mind’s Eye’ is a loving message to his wife, and ‘The Old Man’ was written for his children, The poem ‘I Never Noticed’ is based on a friend’s comments during a country walk; ‘Joe’, by contrast, came from conversations overheard while sitting on a park bench in Windermere.
With poems that are by turns powerful, emotional, passionate, personal, funny and thoughtful, this is a book to carry with you for those moments of personal contemplation.

A Conspiracy of Serpents

The brutal murder of an Oxford undergraduate in the City of London. The trial of the prime suspect. The theft of a research paper from an Oxford laboratory. A deadly pandemic, and a desperate cover-up by the British establishment to suppress the truth.

A story of love, loss, hope and redemption, from the spires of Oxford to the streets of London, from the Kremlin in Moscow to the port of Shanghai, and beyond. 

And the story of the integrity of one jaded lawyer pitted against the ruthless forces of international politics which will stop at nothing to get its way – even murder.

A conspiracy, breath-taking in both its scope and ambition.

A Conspiracy of Serpents.