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Who Are We But The Forgotten |
£6.99 (+ £2.50 postage) Available from Amazon |
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All posts by Sarah
Who Are We But The Forgotten
The Lands of de Gressier – Book 1 of the de Gressier Quartet
C. S. Bunker
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The Lands of de Gressier Book 1 of the de Gressier Quartet When Penrose Dovingdon, a wealthy young officer, and his sister Juliette, a nurse and former debutante, arrive in France at the start of World War I, they have no idea that a notorious national scandal will drive their family apart. The demands of war-torn France are a long way from high-society London, but brother and sister learn fast. World War 1 creates a series of moral and ethical dilemmas which they must navigate, as must the family of Étienne Guégan, Juliette’s future husband. Should one man be shot to save one million? Can corruption be justied when it is for a good cause? Should you forsake marrying the man you love in order to protect your brother’s life? Should the law be broken to keep the family business alive and their community in jobs? Is there ever a good reason to become best friends with your husband’s mistress? |
UK Only £15.99 (+ £3 postage) Number of copies: Available on Amazon For Australia and USA, please order from Amazon.com | ||||||||
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Set against the battlefields of the western front and the vineyards of Bordeaux, this is a story of love, passion, betrayal, human resilience and endeavour as those involved struggle to come to terms with the hurt caused by events outside their control. C.S. Bunker is a former international corporate financier. Using over thirty years of business experience and a lifelong interest in history and politics, Bunker started to write because he had a series of truth-based stories he wanted to tell. Inspired by three very personal songs and places he knew, his first four interconnected books took over twelve years to plan and research, followed by seven years of dedicated crafting and writing. He lives in England. |
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The Vines of de Gressier – Book 2 of the de Gressier Quartet
C. S. Bunker
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The Vines of de Gressier Book 2 of the de Gressier Quartet When the German army occupies Bordeaux in August 1940, the lives of Juliette Guégan, David Daunier and Dominique Hilaire are again thrown into flux; but it is the arrival at Château de Gressier of Leutnant Heinrik Klugman, a pilot in the Luftwaffe, which twists the kaleidoscope of their lives and sends them in different directions. Once again, war creates a series of moral and ethical dilemmas to be navigated. Should you put the lives of your family at risk to work with the Resistance? Should you find comfort in the arms of your best friend’s son? How do you fight collaboration and corruption when it pervades the reputation of the very institution you have sworn to uphold? Should there be a penalty for going to the bed of your family’s enemy? Should love deny differences in age and race? |
Available on Amazon For Australia and USA, please order from Amazon.com | ||||||||
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Set against the vineyards of Bordeaux and South Africa, and the battlefields of the Eastern Front, The Vines of de Gressier continues as a story of love, betrayal, corruption and, above all, human resilience. With much-loved characters from The Lands of de Gressier, C.S. Bunker has written another well-researched page-turner, with clever plots and sub-plots, all interwoven with people and events of history. Another must-read! |
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Shifting Classes in Twentieth Century Britain
Martin Minogue
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Shifting Classes in Twentieth Century Britain From Village Street to Downing Street Martin Minogue An unconventional family story, told with warmth and humour, this account details the mixed fortunes of a rural labouring family, a neglected group in British working-class history. The author’s progress from farmworker’s tied cottage to Cambridge University then to a Foreign Office flat in Downing Street is remarkable, as is the heroism of the working-class parents who made that transition possible. The description of shifts in social relations produced by such sharp movements between different classes illuminates current debates about the persistence of centuries-long inequalities. |
£12.00 (+ £3.00 postage) Available on Amazon |
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Professor Quentin Skinner, School of History, Queen Mary University of London
A memoir of general and even exemplary significance, Shifting Classes begins in a Yorkshire village and ends amid the mandarins and politicians of Westminster and Whitehall. While both settings give rise to some marvellous comic set-pieces, the North-country background also provides a shocking account of deprivations endured and opportunities denied. There have been few accounts of rural working-class life and conditions in twentieth century Britain, and nothing that matches Shifting Classes for its vividness of detail and its power to reveal the injustices that kept the class-system in place.
Fred Inglis, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sheffield
This is a rare, truthful and utterly appealing memoir, a ‘condition of England’ book that is at the same time a happy book, entirely without rancour.'
The Soul of de Gressier – Book 3 of the de Gressier Quartet
C. S. Bunker
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The Soul of de Gressier Book 3 of the de Gressier Quartet Henry Bellanger, the heir apparent to the de Gressier vineyards in Bordeaux, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and a secret. David Daunier, a fugitive from British ‘justice’ and the owner of a successful vineyard in the winelands of South Africa, lives under the tyranny of apartheid and has a secret. Sophie Elleswell, a young German ‘million-dollar’ supermodel, unwittingly carries deep within her psyche, her mother’s secret. Set against the backdrops of vineyards and wineries, the dealings of the drug and wine trades, and the intrigues of the City of London, the happenchance of life brings the Bellanger, Daunier and Elleswell families happily together until crime and corruption involve them in events beyond their control. Using his style of short chapters, intermingling plots and sub-plots, and strong and engaging characters, C.S. Bunker has created another gripping page-turner of love, passion, dishonesty, betrayal, tragedy and this time, revenge! |
Available on Amazon | ||||||||
| C.S. Bunker is a former international corporate financier. Using over thirty years of business experience and a lifelong interest in history and politics, Bunker started to write because he had a series of truth-based stories he wanted to tell. Inspired by three very personal songs and places he knew, his first four interconnected books took over twelve years to plan and research, followed by seven years of dedicated crafting and writing. | ||||||||||
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The Watches of de Gressier – Book 4 of the de Gressier Quartet
C. S. Bunker
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The Watches of de Gressier Book 4 of the de Gressier Quartet When Henry Guégan arrives in Moldova to help privatise its wine industry, he has no idea how dramatically his life is going to change. The country is coming out from under the yoke of communism and is in the vice-like grip of the mafia, gangsters and political corruption. Falling in love with Tania Plesca, and with the vineyards of Moldova capturing his heart, Henry is driven by ambition. He becomes deeply involved in the moral and ethical dilemmas facing the country, but with devastating effect on him and all those around. Running for his life, Henry leaves Moldova with the answer to the question that had plagued him since childhood, and with a secret; both are later uncovered by his sons and revealed to the world in a public and climactic ending. In this fourth book of the de Gressier quartet, C.S. Bunker has produced another utterly engrossing, well-researched, modern historical novel. A fast-moving story, full of excitement, drama, crime, tragedy and love, but above all, with bravery at its heart. |
Available on Amazon | ||||||||
| C.S. Bunker is a former international corporate financier. Using over thirty years of business experience and a lifelong interest in history and politics, Bunker started to write because he had a series of truth-based stories he wanted to tell. Inspired by three very personal songs and places he knew, his first four interconnected books took over twelve years to plan and research, followed by seven years of dedicated crafting and writing. | ||||||||||
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A Butterfly On My Wine Glass – Travel guide to Nouvelle – Aquitaine
Annie jefferies
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Travel guide to Nouvelle - Aquitaine: the Gironde and Dordogne areas of SW France An essential guide for both first time visitors and seasoned travellers to the area. |
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Keith Thornborough, Geneva
This small pocket sized guide to the SW France is a delight from beginning to end.
Annie Jefferies takes us on an anecdotal tour of pretty country towns, old villages, ancient castles and the beautiful rural scenery that has captured her heart.
I read this charming and humorous book with absolute pleasure.
A Devon resident ( Renata Hopkins)
I read this book in a day as I couldn’t put it down ; the local information is useful and very relevant if you are visiting the area , but I so enjoyed the little stories that unfolded along the 2 month journey and again during the winter visit ! I would have appreciated a basic map that would have illustrated the area and the relationship of one town to another . If the author is encouraged to write another book that would be my only suggestion
Thank you
Diane Kersey - resident of Tavistock, Devon
This book is charming and a lovely read .It is very interesting if you are visiting this area of France, but it is also enjoyable to read the tales that intersperse the textual facts. I particularly enjoyed the illustrations . I am buying 10 copies to give to friends at Christmas !
The Mortimer Affair – Joan de Joinville’s Story
Alice Mitchell
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Roger becomes experienced in warfare and is valuable to the young King Edward II and his notorious favourite Piers Gaveston. But when Piers is unexpectedly murdered, the King adopts a new favourite - Hugh Despenser the Younger - and he is Roger’s sworn enemy. Roger leads an unsuccessful rebellion against the King and is imprisoned in the Tower. This means Joan is also imprisoned and suffers great hardships. So begins her journal. When she learns of Roger’s escape from the Tower, and his subsequent return to England at the head of a conquering Army, she believes her troubles will be over. Yet they are only just beginning as she watches her husband’s descent into avarice and cruelty. |
UK Only £12.99 (+ £2.50 postage) Number of copies: Also available on Amazon and Kindle |
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He belongs to Queen Isabella now and rules for her, through her underage son. Joan must find the strength to endure dreadful humiliation for the sake of her family. Finally, history will condemn her husband for regicide - Only Joan knows the truth. For most of her working life, she has been a medical practitioner but is now retired and has returned to writing. After many years living in Merseyside and North Wales, she has moved back to Keighley in West Yorkshire where she was born. |
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Yvonne Plant (5 star rating).
This book is beautifully written. The attention to detail and atmosphere places the reader at the heart of the narrative and makes it almost impossible to put down.
The turn of events and tense, fast-paced action that follows the splendid descriptions of varying locations enables us to fully experience these dark and chaotic times.
Highly recommended.
Norma Benathan, Secretary of the Yorkshire Branch of the Richard III Society
Fed up with Covid 19 and lockdown? Well, I’ve got a cure - read The Mortimer Affair – Joan de Joinville’s Story!
Joan was the wife of that Roger Mortimer, lover of Queen Isabella, the wife of Edward II.
There are two helpful family trees – that of the Mortimers and of the English Royal Family of the time plus a list of Barons and Earls. This is especially useful to any reader unfamiliar with the 13th and 14th centuries as there are a few Edwards, Edmunds and Rogers! The book is incidentally and rather touchingly dedicated to the author’s late husband: - “her own Roger”.
The story is written in three parts.
Part 1 –The Wheel Turns – is mainly about the youth of the couple, Roger and Joan’s marriage being a business arrangement between the two families - as was common amongst the upper classes. From the age of 6 until 9, Alice has imagined Joan living with her grandfather at his castle of Trim in Ireland. Her family also owned Ludlow, so she was a good marriage prospect, being her grandfather’s sole heiress, her two sisters having been dedicated to the church. Joan and Roger were married in 1301 at the ages of 15 and 14. The story is written as a journal by Joan herself with her also recounting what she was told by Roger and others at the events where she was absent, and this works well. The marriage seems to have become a love match – they had 12 children and she often accompanied Roger on his various journeys. This reminded me of the marriage of Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville. Part 1 also covers part of the reign of Edward I.
Part 2 – The new King – brings in the reign of Edward II and his favourite, Piers Gaveston. Alice writes sympathetically about Piers and I can see why. Sadly, after his death along come the Despensers. Hugh Despenser the Younger is a sworn enemy of Roger’s because the Mortimer grandfather had killed the Despenser grandfather.
Part 3 – The Gathering of the Kites – covers the years 1325 until Joan’s death in 1356. As we know, the Despensers ruled the country with Edward II totally in their thrall and these were not good years for the Mortimers. Joan was imprisoned when Roger and several other Earls and Lords rebelled against the Despensers rather than Edward himself. She is treated very badly to begin with but later moves to Skipton Castle before her release some years later. Roger had given himself up and was lodged in the Tower but escaped to France. Here he met up with the Queen and subsequently returned at her side to rule the country until the teenage Edward III decided he had had enough, and we all know what happened then. For hundreds of years, historians have told us of the gruesome death of Edward II. However, others dispute this story. To discover the version Alice Mitchell uses, you must read the book. She admits to some poetic licence at the very end but is careful to tell us what is fact and what is fiction in her Historical Notes.
I have already read Alice’s book twice with equal pleasure and will be reading it again before the end of the year. If you want a good historical novel, do get The Mortimer Affair. I do not think you will be disappointed. I much preferred it to Philippa Gregory’s : The Kingmaker’s Daughter which is also “written” by the woman concerned.
Giles Mercer, reader
I greatly enjoyed it, a remarkably good historical novel. I admired many things about it, such as the ease with which you kept the pace moving along well and kept a large cast of characters and wide range of places within a clear framework; not easy. It was an inspired idea to look at events and relationships through the eyes of Joan de Joinville. Thank you for all that, and for re-igniting my interest in that period.
Joan Bartholomew. Retired English Lecturer , University of Chester.
I have read the book. I am amazed at how the author managed to keep such a large number of characters in mind. I particularly enjoyed the marriage and fading away of the relationship. It was totally believable. Forensic detail. What a woman, and such cruel treatment. It was a marvellous book.