All posts by Sarah

Front Page, history, livesinprint

An account of the achievements of John White, one of the true founding fathers of America
David Cuckson

9781911175643 John White was a man of vision. He was rector of the town of Dorchester in the English county of Dorset from 1605 until his death in 1648. Under his leadership, after a disastrous fire, the town was transformed into a model caring community, embodying his Puritan ideals. He then sought to export this model across the Atlantic, to what was becoming known as New England. He became the driving force behind the Dorchester Company and then the Massachusetts Bay Company, and he inspired many folk from Dorset and the surrounding area to emigrate and found a new Dorchester in Massachusetts. He also lived to see some of these early settlers go on to found what became known as Windsor in Connecticut. This is his story, and theirs, a story of new worlds at home and abroad.
Published: May 2017
Paperback: 98 pages
Price: £6,99
ISBN: 9-781911-175643
Available from Amazon
David Cuckson studied law and theology at the University of Cambridge. He has worked as a Congregational/ United Reformed Church minister and as a solicitor in local government and in private practice. He is now retired and lives in Dorchester.
Reader Reviews...
Front Page, livesinprint, Sport

In 1980, Boxer Walker was voted the best scrum half in the world
Mike Gardner

9781911175582 Boxer Walker was voted the best scrum half in the world in 1980. The incredible story of his life is in part, a social history of a half-forgotten era, when coal mines were the economic bed rock of close-knit communities across the north. He shines a light into what life was like in a claustrophobic Cumbrian pit deep below the Irish Sea and you will join him in the Workington Town dressing room when they beat mighty Wigan to win the Lancashire Cup for the only time in the club’s history. You will also find out about the great players and coaches who helped to burnish his rugged skills and why he was always a prized target for violent forwards, years before the slick presentation of the Super League by Sky TV with its HD quality pictures and video replays.
Published: May 2017
Paperback: 356 pages
Price: £15.00
ISBN: 9-781911-175582

£15.00 (+ £3 postage)
Number of copies:
Boxer’s story is full of highs and lows, including the day he was felled so heavily at the Recreation Ground, that a rumour spread around the terraces that the tackle had killed him. Always exciting, uplifting, poignant, revealing and ultimately triumphant, Boxer: The Life of a Cumbria Great is a towering story of one of Cumbria’s finest-ever home-grown players and of a sporting character almost without compare.
Reader Reviews...

Rugby League Express

In a warts and all account, Gardner doesn't shy away from the fact that Boxer Walker could mix it with the best, almost a prerequisite of a scrum half's armoury in an era when every number seven was a target for enforcers. The award-winning author has written a superb account of a glorious career and this book is a must-read for every rugby league fan.

Adrian Durham, Talksport presenter, journalist and author

Mike Gardner paints a clear and poignant picture of Boxer as he is today, wonderfully written. Overall I enjoyed the description of old school rugby league, as well as the spirit and strength of the game in Cumbria. The photographs are a joy - plenty of them, and capturing an era and an area. The picture of the steps early in the book is awesome! Congratulations, loved it! The author should feel very proud

Rugby League Journal

It is all part of Mike Gardner's skills as a writer in taking us behind the scenes to the 'dark and mysterious' areas of rugby league that the fan doesn't see but only those who played the game can reveal. His descriptive talents and way with words at times present the story in an novel-esque style

Childrens

The World’s Longest Bicycle
Trevor Cunningham

9781911175629 Em and Bill are twelve-year-old twins. After their mum and dad die, they live with their wonderful grandparents, Pops and Grannie. Together, they invent an amazing, snake-like bicycle that can seat up to a hundred children - and it even has ten superseats for those who can’t ride by themselves. The amazing bicycle is able to bend round corners and can even wind up and down the aisles of a supermarket. Everyone wants to know about it and it becomes a world-famous super-bicycle when they ride round Monaco in front of the world’s TV cameras.
Published:May 2017
Paperback:176 pages
Price:£6.99
ISBN:9-781911-175629


Available from YouCaxton

£6.99 (+ £2 postage)
Number of copies:



Available from Amazon
The World’s Longest Bicycle is for every child with no exceptions. It is completely inclusive, no matter who you are, your situation, or your ability. And it’s the first of its type in the entire world. A bicycle for up to 100 children to ride together, in a circle, in zig zags, even up and down the aisles of a supermarket. And in no time at all, it becomes famous across the entire globe.
Reader Reviews...

Childrens

In The Shadow of Knucklas Castle
Katy Mac

9781911175612-600
Published: June 2017
Price: £12.00
Hardback 38 pages
Illustrations: Full colour
ISBN: 9-781911-175612


Available from YouCaxton

£12.00 (+ £2 postage)
Number of copies:



Available from Amazon
This is a story about Knucklas Castle Hill, a special hill on the Welsh border It retells an ancient legend of King Arthur’s marriage to Guinevere, daughter of a giant. Today, in the upper Teme Valley, you can still fi nd traces of the story – not least in the river’s Welsh name, Afon Tefeidiad, so-called after Arthur’s words. There’s a huge stone in a field that looks like a giant’s head; a rock where the devil sat, and the old castle hill itself where the wedding took place. But how did the stone get into the field? And were there really giants here? Surely this ancient hill knows the answers.
Reader Reviews...

Tom Levy, Teacher

This is a little known story of King Arthur, based on an ancient Welsh legend.

All will enjoy the vibrant illustrations, which jump off the page and truly bring the story to life. There are lumpy giants, dark woods, a smiling castle hill that perhaps knows all, and a brightly coloured wedding feast in Knucklas Castle. There are also lovely photographs and a fanciful, but usable map. So you can actually visit the rock where the giant sat; you can see the amazing face of a giant that Arthur turned to stone, and you can walk up to the top of the old castle hill, where Arthur married Guinevere - a truly breath-taking spot. It’s a lovely book for anyone who wants to experience the magic of this small part of the Welsh borders.

As someone who works in education, I recommend this book. It's just the right combination of engaging and educational. Young children will enjoy having it read to them as a mysterious tale, older children will wonder where his¬¬tory ends and myth begins, and for the Arthurian there are references to the sources at the end of the book. A beautiful book!

Frances Brett, Lecturer in Early Childhood

This vibrantly illustrated book shines a light on the secrets of a “special hill” on the Marches borderland, Knucklas Castle, quickly inviting the reader into a startling, ancient landscape where they can travel with Guinevere as she makes a dangerous journey to find Arthur, the one person who can free her brothers from the giants that occupy the land on the far side of the River Teme. Written as if it is a story being told close to your ear, or as if being performed live in front of you, the author walks a teasing line between knowledge, speculation and pure mystery, creating an atmosphere in which almost anything might happen – and then it does! It is beguiling and funny, with no claims being made for certainties, but a suggestion that to be intrigued, and to ask questions about the landscape around you, is satisfying and important. And by the end of the story there is a surprising twist in the tale that brings you back into the lap of fact, with photographs supporting this shift back to the present live landscape. Additional geographical, historical and archaeological detail offers information to help find, explore and make sense or story of a real place that can be visited. The move from the beautifully realised imagined lands within the opening pages, to the OS grid references at the end, captures the book’s journey – one that is well worth making, for children and adults alike.

Philippa Boast, grandmother and artist

Katy Mac treads a tight rope between fact and fantasy, history and mythology in this charming and informative book she has produced to help the Knucklas Castle Community Land Project. Colourful and whimsical illustrations enhance the story perfectly and we can smile as we learn more about the beautiful Teme Valley.

fiction

A Risk Assessment Guide to Murdering Your Financial Advisor
John Cullen

cover 2-1a b - RGB A Risk Assessment Guide to
Murdering Your Financial Advisor

Small time investor Daryl Anderson is bored by his humdrum job and his uneventful suburban life.
Seeking change, he gets conned by a financial shark. Broke and homeless, his marriage and family destroyed, he decides to take the law into his own hands and to execute the man who has destroyed his life.

He travels to the Bahamas where he cuts the man's throat beside a luxury pool. Caught red-handed, Daryl seems destined to spend the rest of his life in prison but instead he is overwhelmed by a wave of public sympathy. His trial at the Old Bailey becomes a media sensation and contributions pour in.
The world wants him freed but the law says he must pay.

What will the jury decide?
Published: May2017
Kindle: 476 pages
Price: £4.60
Available from Amazon
Reader Reviews...

A really good read with a twist at the end.

Excellent read! Kept me gripped until the end, couldn't put it down x.
fiction

Exiles of Titan
The Martian Phase

9781911175728 Deira MacMahon is recruited from GCHQ to the European Bureau of Investigation because she possesses a rare genetic mutation which enables her to undergo a process known as PHotonic Algorithm-Sequestered Engram transmission (PHASEing) without physical or mental damage. She is only six months out of the Bureau Academy and still getting used to being ‘transmitted’ to trouble spots around the world, when she and her supervisor are ordered on a mission to Mars – and must undertake the journey as the first human subjects of a new interplanetary PHASEing technology. The interplanetary PHASE affects Deira and her supervisor in very different ways and when the mission suddenly shifts to Titan, the sixth moon of Saturn, Deira must continue on alone.
Published: June 2017
Paperback: 476 pages
Price: £14.99
ISBN: 9-781911-175728
Available from Amazon
While on Titan, Deira meets Sol Smith, a man with no past whose few remaining memories are at odds with reality and who seems vaguely familiar - although they have never met. Together, Deira and Sol, uncover a plot of enormous proportions – a plot that takes in the foundations of sub-quantal physics itself, and which must be thwarted if the human race is to survive.

Other books in the series...
Book 2: Agents of Titan - The Lunar Portal
Reader Reviews...

Amazon Customer

Sci-fi's not normally my cup of tea but a friend gave me this book as a present so I felt obliged to read it. I couldn't put it down! It's not just sci-fi it is also a mixture of mystery and thriller and I really enjoyed it. I thought Sol was a great character and I can't wait for the next in the series.



Judith Meredith

I was given this title by a family member, it is not the type of book I normally read. Decided to try it and I had trouble putting it down. A murder mystery on the planet's it is well written and an enjoyable easy read.



Daniel Piper

The plot moves along at a good pace with twists here and there. Read it in a couple days, had trouble putting it down.
fiction

The Way The Hen Kicks
Lars Guthorm Kavli

Copy of TheWayTheHenKicks_656x1000px London is caught in a perpetual blizzard – and not a single piece of snow-removal equipment can be found. The Mayor has sold it all to balance the budgets. To cover his tracks he calls upon a legendary snow-remover from Norway and Operation Snow Removal can begin. But the snow just keeps falling. London is gradually disappearing. Will flat-mates Bjørn, Wolfgang and the Dane survive? Will anyone? If this really is the next ice age. The Way The Hen Kicks is a story about gravity and awareness. About mothers and sons; love, ambition and corruption. About what it means to want to preserve something for future generations.
Published:15th April 2015
Paperback:365 pages
Price:£12.99
ISBN:9-781909-644588

 Available from Amazon
and Kindle e-books


Lars Guthorm Kavli holds a Masters degree in Creative Writing from UEA (2011). He also holds degrees from Goldsmiths, LSE and the University of Southern California, and has worked as a media entrepreneur and consultant. He comes from Norway and lives in Berlin.
Watch the trailer on YouTube

Kirkus review, November 2015.

A foreboding tale of a snow-covered London in despair, enlivened by encouraging characters and events.

Amazon Reader Reviews...

Imminent apocalypse sharpens our vision of the everyday

This end-of-the-world story is disturbing but also often heartening. The reader experiences both an urgency to know what happens next and, contrastingly, an invitation to slow down time and reflect with the writer on many private moments of being – for example what it feels like to be sitting in a pair of wet trousers, what it feels like to be desperately tired, what despair feels like.
The book’s strength is these close up, fine grained descriptions of each character’s state of mind, or rather state of body and mind. Often the writer is managing to capture every day moments and the observations which we all make but which are so familiar and ordinary they rarely find their way into literature.
For Londoners, or perhaps those who visit the city, the book will have a special meaning – it’s certainly depressing to follow the disintegration of the urban landscape which we generally assume will go on giving. However the depression is not overwhelming and it feels as though it is in the service of a valuable wake up call – there is perhaps an old fashioned moral tale embedded in this very contemporary novel.

Loved this.

It has really big, complex characters: a bumbling posh Mayor, an alcoholic Norwegian snow specialist, a migrant worker who may have discovered the meaning of life. They're all trying to deal with the snow storm that's covered London. It's very clever (the story seems to be told by a computer from the future), but it's very funny (there are loads of drunken misadventures) and at points it's deeply moving (lots of Oedipal longing and existential contemplation). It's really rare to find something so easy to read, but so full of ideas and beauty. It's very, very good.

Very engaging and original style

The author has an impressive ability to draw very detailed pictures of the state of minds and situations facing the characters making the reader feel psychological and physical motions they go through with particular acuteness. Most of the story being set in London adds an extra dimension of engagement for those who know the city. Captivating and thought provoking!It's very, very good.

This is great stuff. Refreshing too

Every detail is a macrocosm with the immediacy of a haiku. Beneath the funny exterior, there is a painful existential crisis in every snowflake. You feel like you're headed for a car crash after inhaling slo-mo. I actually hesitated each time I picked it up - worried for how it disintegrates - but it was too compulsive. Highly recommended. Weird how I find myself envying their apocalypse..

Gripping

Haven't been this gripped by a novel for a long time

fiction

Agents of Titan
The Lunar Portal

It is twenty years since Deira and Sol MacMahon were instrumental in foiling the three-fold plot to destroy Earth by the aggressive aliens known as the Cthon. Twenty years, during which time their son, Josh, has grown to become an agent himself, and their daughter, Juliette, has entered a sub-quantal physics research lab. Now the Cthon are back, with an attack so devastating that it will test the agents to breaking point. The Eich can see no way out of the current nightmare and, in desperation, send Josh on a mission to the Cthon home world. Meanwhile Deira and Sol work frantically with the authorities on Earth to try to combat this most potent threat. It’s a race against time. A race to safeguard Earth and evacuate the thirty-five thousand inhabitants of Mars Base before disaster strikes. A race that will raise questions about the Eich, the Cthon and the nature of sub-quantal space. A race that will force Deira MacMahon to confront her worst nightmare…

Other books in the series...
Book 1: Exiles of Titan - The Martian Phase
Published: May 2018
Paperback: 508 pages
Price: £11.50
ISBN: 9-781912-419258
Available from Amazon
Reader Reviews...