Having left his secure home and future in New York at 14, ‘Stretch’ survives through his quick wit and an easy way with words and the truth. Arriving in Australia as a ships’ surgeon, he abandons his Royal Navy duties and answers the call of the gold rush. Traveling south to the very edge of civilization, he leaves a trail of unfinished business and ill will. When responsibility closes in, he once again runs, this time to the goldfields at Kiandra in the southern alps. Confronted by a huge blaze as the bush becomes an inferno, he stands shoulder to shoulder with the other ‘diggers’ to fight for their lives. Uncharacteristically, he again risks his life, dashing back over the mountains in the wake of the fire to rescue a couple he knows will be caught in its path. Tragedy awaits and he races to rescue his friend’s wife, only to be thwarted at every turn by the consequences of his earlier behavior. Driven by an emotion stronger than gold fever, he stands and faces his accusers, and in doing so, learns about respect and responsibility, trust and friendship.

About the author: Brian Black

Brian took an early retirement from a Project Management career to concentrate on his writing. This is his second novel, the first being a collaborative effort with a group of international authors, resulting in Passage to Redemption. Counting travel, caravan touring and bush walking among his hobbies, he lives with his wife on the fringes of Canberra, Australia's ‘bush capital’, where they enjoy both the sophisticated urban lifestyle and the simplicity of rural and bush land environments.  

When Freddy Stein escapes the net cast by the police forces of Guernsey and Munich, he becomes embroiled in a plan to preserve the lucrative drugs' dealings of a sinister crime lord. But miles away from his familiar city surroundings, on a remote Channel Island, Freddy's life is changed forever. His fate, and that of his victims, take a turn nobody, least of all Freddy, could have predicted. This gripping conclusion to Peter Lihou's debut novel Rachel's Shoe skilfully fuses together another tale of action, suspense and romance set in the spectacular Channel Islands.

About the author: Peter Lihou

Sussex 1950

Peter was born in a small cottage, nestled between a railway embankment and a bridge, a few years after his parents were 'demobbed' from the RAF after world war two. He has lived, worked and raised a family around the South of England and Channel Islands. He now writes, goes walking and sails his traditional style yacht around his home near Bodmin Moor in Cornwall.

The Illandian Spring Tournament is about to reach its crescendo, and with the king's only daughter, Danielle de Brie, and her twin brother, Kane, preparing to face each other in the tourney ring for the deciding match the citizens and nobles of Arkaelyon's capital city are in a fever of excited speculation. Determined to free herself from the fear her twin brother has always provoked in her and to show the world that men such as Kane de Brie can be defeated, Danielle has every intension of making her brother's title her own. But even as the two royals climb the stairs to Illandia's famous dueling ring, Danielle has no idea that a rescind coven of druids are about to change her world forever or that the deep animosity between Kane and her is fated to plunge the realm into civil war. A dream the night before is the only hint she has of the dangerous manipulation that is stirring in the shadows of her father's realm. But the frightful vision is so diabolical that she writes it off as likely the product of her fatigue after a hard fought week of competition and the fact she is about to face her greatest fear in the tourney ring. But when she makes passing mention of the dream to the Lord Protector, Father Joseph's response and the secrets he and a priestly order protect are destined to set her on a desperate and perilous path to prevent the fulfilment of a prophecy that if realised will not only see to the destruction of her father's kingdom and every land on the continent-but herald the rise of an ancient and tyrannical order of Larniusian Druids who have waited centuries to restore the authority of the dark goddess across the face of the world.

About the author: Phillip Gillanders

Phillip Gillanders is a New Zealand author of epic fantasy. He lives on Auckland's unspoilt west coast and when he's not writing fiction he is working on his doctorate in sociology.

In 1968, one oil company was left drilling for oil on the North Slope of Alaska. All the big guns had given up and left the icy waste of this frozen desert. When the drill penetrated the lake of oil beneath the ice, so began what was described as the ‘second gold rush in Alaskan history’. Michael Parker has taken this historical fact and turned it into a brilliant thriller that penetrates the reader’s mind as keenly as the drill cut through the ice. Fyffe Oil, alone on the Slope is fighting against time and a ruthless killer who is determined to prevent the company succeeding. Andrew Fyffe, the owner, is desperate, and when his chief engineer is murdered, he has only one man he can turn to; Joshua McKinnon. But McKinnon is washed up; a drunk and a dropout. Fyffe drags him from the bars in Fairbanks and forces him to fly up to the rig. McKinnon soon learns that the killer is ruthless and will stop at nothing to prevent him finding oil. He can trust no-one and battles against the elements and the killer in a desperate race against time. NORTH SLOPE is a teeth chattering, nerve shattering novel set in an Arctic wasteland from a gifted writer.

About the author: Michael Parker

Michael Parker is the author of seven novels. He has been writing all his adult life and never fails to deliver stories that keep the reader turning the pages until the end. He has been married to Pat for over 50 years and lives in Spain. They have four sons and t

Imagine New Year celebrations ending in Jihad – destruction and death so far beyond 9/11 and 7/7 as to be incomprehensible. Fatalities in the tens of thousands shakes a population hardened to modern violence from its apathy; a change in government, a transformation of society – A divided Fortress Britain of lynchings, beatings and no-go enclaves ruled by fundamentalist law. Human rights legislation is repealed and Britain own version of Guantanamo Bay, undesirables are forcibly repatriated. Fuelled by global warming, a huge natural disaster calls for everyone to pull together. Despite religious differences, diversity of skin colour and conflicting cultures, can human beings seize this final opportunity? Still at large years later, the New Year Jihadist has a nuclear bomb and a private agenda – the Prime Minister becomes his target of choice.

About the authors: David Coles and Jack Everett

David Coles and Jack Everett are the authors of several books including Last Mission, The Last Free Men and Merlin’s Kin.

 

Imagine the uncertainty ceased and the world was faced with an indisputable, stark truth:- reduce atmospheric CO2 to pre-biblical levels within three years or the human race will be destroyed. What would we do, what could we do? Who would lead us?

These are the questions asked by this ecological thriller that spans, not just hundreds, but thousands of years. The story begins on the deck of a wooden warship off the coast of Spain in the early 1800th century and follows the quest of the ship's gun crew. Their plight is woven into a history that goes back to early Mayan times and plunges forwards to the year 2012 and a world desperate to reduce greenhouse gases.

Written collaboratively by eleven international authors, this story is epic in every sense of the word.

About the authors: The Crew

The Crew is an international writing group started by the novelist Peter Lihou with the objective of proving that a disparate group of authors could work together and complete a successful novel in twelve months. Over the months the authors have faced a multitude of challenges aside from those created by the project, ranging from extreme climatic emergencies (including a volcanic eruption) to life threatening illnesses and several bereavements, financial hardship, lifestyle and career pressures. Inevitably some have been unable to accommodate the project and consequently there have been reductions in the membership of The Crew. The creative process, however, has continued to be nurtured by the remaining authors. During the life of the project a total of 53 individuals contributed to either the planning or writing phases. Seventeen embarked on the yearlong writing phase that has taken the equivalent of 12 man (and woman) years to complete as well as more than 8,000 messages on the closed Internet forum. These required over 133,000 page views by the authors or an average of 12,000 each, over the course of the year. To date, none of the authors have met in person and the only contact has been via the Internet.  

Merlin's Kin takes 5 teenagers and places them in Greensward, a world that seems to lag behind our own by quite a stretch of time. Most memorable is the gentle gentleman Sasquatch or Big Foot but there's a race of rather straight-laced elf-like creatures, the bird-like reptiles, the mammoths that pull HUGE caravans -- all these can be imagined as creatures who have accidentally found their way to our world in the past or from ours to the World of Greensward.

Last but by no means least, are the humans. King Arthur and his knights came to Greensward by virtue of Merlin's magic but it was long ago and all the chivalrous rules of the Round Table have withered and died. These are not nice people and the current leader is the nastiest of the nasty.

About the authors: David Coles and Jack Everett

David Coles and Jack Everett are the authors of several books including Last Mission, The Last Free Men and Merlin’s Kin. 

In the final days of WW II, many last gasp schemes were discussed to postpone the inevitable end of the Third Reich. There were schemes, too, to build a Fourth Reich in South America, Martin Bormann had formulated one such scheme but the Fuhrer proposed a final, brilliant undertaking, a last mission to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Bormann saw that his own and the Fuhrer’s project were, in fact complementary, one a back-up for the other. They would need an aircraft, an American bomber… Meticulously planned with American fifth columnists, the target was breathtaking; & to imagine how the Americans had laboured so hard in building their own downfall.

About the authors: David Coles and Jack Everett

David Coles and Jack Everett are the authors of several books including Last Mission, The Last Free Men and Merlin’s Kin. 

Nestled in the bay of St Malo, the Channel Islands claim the unique, if unenviable distinction of being the only part of Britain to have been occupied by a foreign power in hundreds of years. Life in the islands during the five years under the Jackboot was hard and freedoms severely curtailed, but the spirit of a teenage Guernsey boy called Tom Le Breton was never dampened. This is the story of a dramatic wartime rescue and the romance that grew between Tom and a young Jewish girl imprisoned on the nearby island of Alderney. The story moves from those dangerous but somehow magical days to the heady 1970s when long-since forgotten events return to haunt a small family now settled on the Western coast of Guernsey. Impregnated with the atmosphere of remote islands and their unique history, Rachel's Shoe is an adventure story about the survival of innocence in a world dominated by obsessions for power and wealth.

About the author: Peter Lihou

Sussex 1950

Peter was born in a small cottage, nestled between a railway embankment and a bridge, a few years after his parents were 'demobbed' from the RAF after world war two. He has lived, worked and raised a family around the South of England and Channel Islands. He now writes, goes walking and sails his traditional style yacht around his home near Bodmin Moor in Cornwall.