A Time in Paris

In the sweltering Indian summer of 1870, a young Englishman is sent to Paris as Prussian invaders advance on the French capital with the largest siege army ever assembled. The City of Light is cut off from the outside world, the population trapped behind its tall ramparts. As the siege continues for a month, then a second, a hungering third, a frozen fourth and into a starved fifth, the Englishman, a stock young gentleman of his Victorian times, falls in love with a radical French enchantress who by chance saves his hide. The lovers’ fate is entwined with those of a tormented French general appointed to defend Paris and an impatient Prussian grandee (Otto von Bismarck) hell-bent on bringing the ‘capital of civilisation’ to its knees. The unlikely love story turns upon true events that have shaken our world through to the present.

Praise for David Lawday’s recent book Danton: Giant of the French Revolution:

“Spirited and highly readable… Lawday creates some great set pieces and striking turning points… He is able to capture the atmosphere of the early revolution: its inflammable mix of devilment and righteousness, reckless selflessness and flagrant self-promotion. He sees that Danton was more than the sum of his crimes, the sum of his secrets; he celebrates his ‘large heart and violent impulses in an irresolvable conflict’.”

Hilary Mantel, The London Review of Books.

A Time of Flames – Book One

‘There is a void within me; a darkness that no amount of booze, sex or drugs, can heal. Each morning, I wake with a name on my lips. Always a girl’s name. Always the wrong name.’

An abducted boy and an imprisoned girl, separated by space and time, are destined to be lovers and saviours of a broken world.

Sebastian is privileged, handsome and lost. He struggles with depression and substance abuse as he desperately tries to come to terms with a world he doesn’t understand.

Sebastian paints to quell the darkness. His work depicts a sombre world full of decaying gothic buildings. One night, as if guided by another’s hand, he paints the portrait of a beautiful woman. He gazes into the jade green eyes that mirror his own, and there he finds a reason to live. With every quickening beat of his heart, he knows he has painted a living, breathing woman. The woman who will heal the void within him. The woman he must find. The woman whose name is on his lips at the break of each new day.

As he begins his search, the path Sebastian treads is more mysterious and dangerous than he could have ever imagined. It leads him to a strange house where he discovers horrifying secrets and learns the truth about the woman he seeks and her link to the ruthless man who called himself his father.

A Vanished Hand

What do you do when the ghost of a serial killer taps you on the shoulder and follows you home? Haunted and accused of her secretary’s murder, Kate turns to her glamorous, psychic friend Jane and the mysterious witch Diana. Can they uncover the identity of the nineteenth century serial killer so that celestial justice may take its course? Snow is falling on the ancient walls of Kate’s home town; darkness descends and time is running out…

A Voice for Rebekah

In the years following the deaths of her parents and brother in a vehicle crash, Australian Anna O’Reilly is surprised to learn her mother, Elizabeth, had been adopted at birth. Curious to know more and, armed only with her mother’s date and place of birth, St Catherine’s Orphanage in Devon, Anna begins her search.

Because of the time that has elapsed and the closure of the orphanage in the 1950s, Anna believes the possibility of finding anything is remote. She is wrong.

Anna discovers her grandmother was a young Jewish girl, Rebekah Kominski, who struggled to survive and escape persecution in war-torn Poland. At the end of the war, she, with other children, is taken to the Lake District and later assigned to a foster family, but questions remain.

What happened to cause Rebekah to be banished from what was to be the start of a new and better life to an orphanage and a harsh existence? While at the orphanage, she became pregnant. Was she raped? Why and how, after giving birth at aged thirteen, did she disappear?

Anna continues her search until she finds the answers and reveals the shocking truth behind Rebekah’s disappearance.

A Walk in "Wild" Wales with George Borrow

In his Welsh classic, Borrow provides an account of his walk from Llangollen to Swansea in 1856, a walk which at the time would have been a pursuit of epic proportions. Borrow’s literary musings, historical anecdotes and experiences along the way, presented in the form of a journal, provide an insight to Welsh life as it was in the middle of the 19th Century.

In a world immersed in the industrial revolution, Borrow was undoubtedly struck by the magnitude and pace of change that was happening around him. But it would not have been evident to him that the world could be anything like it is today. A world without motor cars, no electricity, no telephones, no aeroplanes, no police force anything like we know it today and the wonders of a technological revolution that has turned the world on its head not even a figment of the imagination, that was the world of Borrow.

A Walk in “Wild” Wales with George Borrow compares Borrow’s Wales with Wales today and captures events that have impacted on towns that Borrow passed through and some of the characters they have produced who have helped shape a Welsh culture built on a unique language and a hardiness of spirit descendant from its farming and mining heritage.  

A Way to Go

An intense romance developed out of an illicit and highly sensual affair of more than 10 years which survived many hurdles.

Freed from the ties of work and family by retirement and bereavement, the couple embark on a trip of a lifetime around the coasts of Europe, with its idyllic beaches, historic cities, fascinating art galleries and ancient sites.

This is a gripping and highly readable novel full of wit, fun and escapist pleasures, but with disturbing happenings which raise serious issues of love, estrangement and loss.

A Window on the Past

Sherlock, an egocentric businessman in Los Angeles in 2011, is about to fire his secretary, Sophie. But when he walks into an elevator in the skyscraper he works in, he finds himself travelling back in time to the moment when the first plane is about to hit World Trade Center One on September 9, 2001. His actions during the tragedy in the famous Windows on the World restaurant transform him into a man who is caring and heroic.

This gripping story is about those people who were left to die, and how an interloper from the future succeeded in saving a few. It is, most importantly, about the brave efforts of those who struggled to save the people in the towers, and the challenges they faced on this horrible day in New York City.

A Wing and A Prayer

When Beatrice unexpectedly joins Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force on a whim, she soon realises she has bitten off more than she can chew. 

Why is she the only woman in the training unit?

Why is there so much snobbery, and so many illogical archaic rules to fathom? 

Why does she stick out like a sore thumb, and when will she be able to escape?

A Word of Hope

Each of us are on the journey of mortality. A journey in which no one is spared a handful of heartaches, a time of trial, or a darkest hour. And though our time on Earth is a time for joy, love, and life– there will come a time, or many, of shadow when a simple word of hope is all that seems to part the darkness surrounding us. A time when it is only hope that is light enough to keep us moving on our path. Where this hope can be found is a question whose answer is too individually unique to capture in a simple phrase.

A Word of Hope is a collection of poetry that explores some sources of hope and the faith required to find them. Other poems in the collection paint a picture of the hardships of mortality as these are the times hope is most needed. These poems serve as reminders that no matter what may darken our lives, there is some light that will always shine. There is always hope to be had.

A World of Stone

From Mireille Saba Redford, author of A City Across the Night, The Waltz of Dust and The Wounded Virtue, and translator and editor of The Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry, here is a new collection of English poems that will take you to a forgotten land where nothing seems to matter anymore.
A World of Stone adopts the voice of a woman who finds her life turned upside down when faced with the harsh realities of the modern world and clings to her childhood memories, when the land of legends was a truly mysterious and captivating place.
It highlights her love that could not overcome her pride, her loneliness caused by the many losses she has encountered, and her sorrows amidst the fast and sad changes in the world, such as humanitarian crises, drug abuse, violence, alienation, inequality, power in the hands of the few and abuse of human rights.
Throughout the poems, you will hear and feel all the torments, disappointments and cries which somehow have the power to change the way some perceive the world. However, there is a clear message that despite losing its ‘gentility’, the world can still have a ‘Margin of Peace’ that would guarantee its security and sustainability.
This book of love and anger, of the living and the dead, displays the values that once formed the very pillars of our society, and sends a call to restructure what is left and to stop the decline in civil liberties. Its vivid descriptions shed light on the poet’s own experiences, while stressing the need both to save a world on the brink and to alleviate the suffering of the most vulnerable by a return to the humanitarian principles of equality and justice.

A Year of Words

The year is 2007 and my mind is full of poems and a need to write. These poems I wrote are a diary of emotions reflecting the day that they were written. They are an eclectic journey through my year. They reflect an emotional journey whose intent is to diarise in rhyme the moment they were written.

Oft the poems are whimsical, sometimes philosophical, and other times musing. The poems were written without edits, the poems in this compendium are of the moment, no revisions were ever considered. These poems are my conversation with you, they are your insight into a very mercurial mind, full of emotion.

I have written poems all my life, and now at 74 some of them have found a page and an audience, please enjoy.

Abbie Brown: On the Cusp

Abbie Brown kicks off her 34^th year with an unexpected splash of fame: her Santorini vacation snap, featuring her in a vibrant yellow bikini atop a donkey, is plastered on billboards across London. (For clarity, the bikini is on Abbie, not the donkey!) Riding this wave of newfound celebrity, she lands a spot on Sir Giles Bromley’s BBC gardening show. Life seems perfect, until the universe serves her a slice of humble pie.

Navigating the chaos of single life (weighing in at 73kgs, if you must know), Abbie finds herself in the midst of an office medical drama, dealing with her nightmare flatmate Janice, and questioning if Rebecca truly is the refined acquaintance she seems. As for romance? Between George’s overbearing mother, Oliver’s youth, a married butcher, a BBC exec with a cringe-worthy habit, and the not-so-perfect ‘Peter Perfect,’ Abbie’s love life is a rollercoaster. Yet, she remains hopeful that her knight in shining armor is out there in the vast English countryside.

In the midst of it all, she gains a furry companion: Woofer, a lovable terrier with a quirky ear. Plus, there’s a promising spark with a dashing farmer from the Yorkshire Dales. The two are smitten. (We’re talking about Abbie and the farmer, not the dog, of course!)

But with Abbie’s track record, what could possibly go awry? Dive into a tale of unexpected fame, comedic misadventures, and the quest for true love.