Category Archives: fiction

explore, fiction

Abandoned Bicycles
Nick Gosman

Published: Dec 2025
Paperback: 320 pages
Price: £12.99
ISBN: 978-1-918172-07-2
Available from
The Great British Bookshop
and
Available from
Amazon
Abandoned Bicycles
A collection of short stories by Nick Gosman

Recounting the remarkable circumstances under which four bicycles came to be left at Cambridge Station, ABANDONED BICYCLES is a collection of short stories that examine the profound effects of love and loss.

In these narratives, amateur investigator Margery Gates searches for the truth behind a husband’s suicide, Jane Betts strives for justice after losing her son in a car accident, David Crum, approaching later life, unexpectedly discovers new love, and Magor Stanovich, burdened by his violent past, has hopes for redemption abroad. Each story explores personal transformation through adversity.
explore, fiction

Blind Woman’s Buff
Reinhard Tenberg

Published: Sept 2022
Paperback: 272 pages
Price: £10.00
ISBN: 9781914424717
Available from
The Great British Bookshop
Blind Woman's Buff
by Reinhard Tenberg

Hannah Tring, a journalist and foreign war correspondent in her late twenties, loses her sight in a terrible accident. Fiercely independent, she does not cope well with her trauma and struggles to adapt to the life-changing situation. At home, her relationship comes under increasing pressure as she loathes having to rely, like a child, on fiancé Robert. Hannah is horrified to discover, while awaiting the result of her eye operation, not only that her sister, Jen, has taken over her job, but that Rob is having an affair. Will she ever be able to see the world again?

Other books by Reinhard Tenberg...

 Poetry Soup -Illustrated by John Tordoff

My Parent's Darkroom

Taking Time out
Reviews of Blind Woman's Buff

Lindy Reddihough - 5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn’t put it down.
A fast-paced, unsentimental read, exploring the complexity and frailty of human relationships, and the impact of sudden disability on the heroine, Hannah, a reporter in a war zone, whose future becomes uncertain and terrifying in many ways. The author expertly guides the reader into world of blindness through vivid descriptions. A really enjoyable read with a twist. I would definitely recommended this book. One person found this helpful

James Frank - 5.0 out of 5 stars - Insight and Compassion
Blind Woman’s Bluff is a lively read that engages through its facets of traumatic injury, sibling rivalry, personal jeopardy and love. At its heart is the challenge of coping with sudden blindness, the vulnerabilities that ensue and the highs and lows of possible treatments. Reinhard deals with this with real insight and compassion through the way he presents Hannah, the victim of a suicide bomber. The strains this puts on her personal and professional lives run through the novel. The title’s play on the childhood game takes on a particular meaning as the story unfolds; and is a reminder of how we too often take the gift of sight for granted. BRH<

Colin Knight - 5.0 out of 5 stars - Gripping Read
Blind woman’s buff is a great read about a journalist who loses her eyesight when reporting in a war zone. I really enjoyed the book and the gripping narrative kept the pages easily turning. I particularly enjoyed the vivid descriptions of the settings, enabling reader (like the protagonist) to picture the scenery despite not seeing it with their own eyes. I highly recommend giving ‘blind woman’s buff’ a read!
Blind woman’s buff is a great read about a journalist who loses her eyesight when reporting in a war zone.
I really enjoyed the book and the gripping narrative kept the pages easily turning.
I particularly enjoyed the vivid descriptions of the settings, enabling reader (like the protagonist) to picture the scenery despite not seeing it with their own eyes.

I highly recommend giving ‘blind woman’s buff’ a read!

fiction, NewBooks

If Walls Could Talk
Julie Taylor

Published: Nov 2025
Paperback: 251 pages
Price: £11.50
ISBN: 978-1-915972-97-2
Available from
The Great British Bookshop
and
Available from
Amazon
If Walls Could Talk
by Julie Taylor

A chair is just a chair ... or is it?

There she stood, tall in stature, stiff lace covering her face, a lady dressed from head to foot in black. In order to display her displeasure, she slowly raised her veil and frowned.

I froze.

~

‘I want to speak to you about the squealing child running around last night.’ A smirk hovered at the corners of her mouth, ‘There are no children on the premises.’

~

Ghosts lurk in the garden, more in the attic. I know – for I have seen them, smelled them, heard them, felt them – the ‘shadow children’.

~

Alice showed them the note then read out the translation. ‘In this house we were always nervous.’ She was mortified, ‘What have I brought us to?’

~

As they stepped onto the pavement, the waiter called out, ‘Keep the lights on. Stay as a group. No one go anywhere alone!’

~

No one could deny what they were seeing. The silhouette of a woman - cast upon the wall. Everyone looked to see whose it might be. There was no one from whom it could have been projected.

~

A hand emerged through the mirror. Its cold bony fingers stroked my face.



Julie Taylor’s first book Is Anybody There? was non-fictional; focusing on haunted locations. This time her creative mind comes to the fore.

Friends; friends of friends, are always eager to share their experiences with her. Even seeking advice when inexplicable things happen to them.

A member of the Clergy requested permission to offer the use of her poems at funeral services, describing them as refreshingly different. She was entrusted to write one for an Italian family. An honour in itself.
fiction, NewBooks

Bentwood
Jan Roberts

Published: Nov 2025
Paperback: 240 pages
Price: £12.00
ISBN: 978-1-915972-92-7
Available from
The Great British Bookshop
and
Available from
Amazon
Bentwood
by Jan Roberts

A chair is just a chair ...

or is it?

This debut collection of fifteen short stories explores whether there is much more to this everyday piece of furniture than it first appears. The chairs in question are all ‘Bentwood’, the innovative creations of the designer Michael Thonet, first introduced in the mid-1830s. As each new character is revealed, and their individual loss becomes apparent, it is evident that chairs are not just for sitting upon and they carry their own history etched within the wood.

One chair becomes a weapon when rival females clash; another a makeshift stage for an older woman, whose decisions have never been her own; a Bentwood rocker is a symbol of independence and choice, and a magnificent butterfly chair befriends a troubled child. In the final story, this assortment of chairs is brought together around one grand table, where Walter, Michael Thonet’s fictitious butler, prepares for a dinner party he will never forget.



Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, into a family of avid book readers, Jan studied English Literature at Manchester University. She is a compulsive people-watcher and is enthralled by the minutiae of everyday life, utilising both these facets of her personality within her writing.

When not sitting at a desk with pen in hand, she loses herself in the garden, where she can be found with hands in the soil, or inhaling the scent of flowers. You may also catch her walking along country lanes, armed with a camera, or having fun with family and friends.

Reviews of Bentwood...

Bethany Rivers (poet, author and creative writing tutor),
author of ‘Fountain of Creativity: ways to nourish your writing.’

Jan skilfully weaves together the everyday details of the characters’ lives, bringing them vividly to life.
She creates a tapestry of stories from a variety of individual character voices you will fall in love with.
When you reach the end of the book, you will want to read these fascinating character portraits all over again.
explore, fiction

English Reserve
Ian Alexander

Published: October 2025
Paperback: 167 pages
Price: £8.80
ISBN: 978-1-918172-02-7
Available from
The Great British Bookshop
and
Available from
Amazon
English Reserve
by Ian Alexander

The volunteers are working happily in a small nature reserve in Middlesex. They mow the meadows, repair the boardwalk, dredge the pond, and keep the paths tidy. They chat amongst themselves and discuss how they could solve all the world’s problems... if only the reserve’s management and government more generally would listen and act rationally. It would be idyllic, if it wasn’t for the litter-picking.

Years before, the area had been shaped by noisily competing railway companies: used as a quarry, and as railwaymen’s gardens, abandoned, saved from being built over. It was a miracle it had survived, with nature flourishing amidst the urban jungle. Meanwhile, in a minor English public school, the boys endure a life of spotty food, compulsory team games, bullying, and homophobia. Some of them are marked for life.

Back in the reserve, families visit on sunny days while school groups come to hunt bugs and go pond-dipping. But some visitors hurry in and out without glancing at the wildlife. What can they be up to? As the volunteers speculate on what’s happening, one of them plays a practical joke, which goes horribly wrong. As the police arrive to solve the supposed murder, history catches up with the unwelcome visitors.

Ian Alexander is a retired systems engineer, amateur naturalist, and conservation volunteer. He enjoys seeing and photographing wildlife of many kinds, especially dragonflies and orchids. He has co-authored several books on systems engineering.

He is the author of a history book, The English Love Affair with Nature (2015) and contributed five chapters to West London Wildlife (2022).

He gives talks to natural history groups on the subject of that love affair, and on topics such as camouflage and life in an urban nature reserve.

He is married with one daughter.

https://www.obsessedbynature.com

fiction

Amazonia
Nick Gosman

Published: August 2025
Paperback: 244 pages
Price: £10.99
ISBN: 978-1-915972-98-9
Available from
Amazon
Amazonia
by Nick Gosman

Taking the premise that urgent action to avert climate change and environmental destruction requires radical solutions, the story unfolds around an ancient and secretive company known as the Diadem Corporation. At its head, an unexpected climate champion emerges in the form of its celebrity CEO, Brigitte Fassbender, who, at a stroke, saves the Brazilian Amazon. In return for paying off the country’s crippling national debt, Fassbender secures a ninety nine year lease ending decades long destruction through deforestation and mining.

Unknown even to Fassbender at its head, her announcement to the world that the Amazon has been saved triggers the final stage of an ancient conspiracy hidden within the Diadem Corporation. Deep within the company’s fabric, a mysterious order known as the Fellowship of Dael meets to decide on the fate of humanity itself.

On pain of death, supplicants of the order have worked for successive generations to ensure the Fellowship’s centuries old plans come to fruition resulting in decedents of the Dael, a long-extinct race of beings who first visited Earth in antiquity, take what the order sees as their rightful place as rulers over the morally inferior human race. A closely-guarded secret amongst an influential elite within the Diadem Corporation, the Fellowship’s intentions remain obscure until the dénouement of the story.



Nick Gosman gained an insight into what it takes to survive in the wilderness during his formative years climbing and mountaineering in Scotland and Continental Europe.

Since his early years wondering the world’s empty spaces with family and friends, wild nature has come to hold a deep spiritual resonance with the author, which he attempts to bring to his story-telling.
fiction

Finding Clara
Graham Hitchcock

Published: May 2025
Hardback: 414 pages
Price: £14.99
ISBN: 978-1-915972-79-8
Available from
Amazon
and
The Geat British Bookshop
Finding Clara
The Revenant, the Heretic and the Occultist
by Graham Hitchcock

Demoralized academic Tobias Jackson, encounters an enigmatic young woman on snowbound train in the Highlands of Scotland, in the winter of 2011. From that moment onwards, a sequence of unnerving experiences forces him to doubt his core beliefs.

Tobias is supported by Medieval History graduate and former lover Emma Andersson. Emma makes a shattering discovery as she tries to locate the woman on the train. In an attempt to find out the true identity of this woman and achieve some resolution, they embark upon a dangerous and frightening journey into the past of Clair Sinclair.

Travelling in the footsteps of Clair, the journey takes them from Caithness, to the Isle of Mull and Iona, where an unsolved Scottish mystery engulfs Emma. Continuing onto Cathar Country in the Languedoc France, as they encounter people who knew Clair, they try to piece together fragmented clues. Coming face to face with evidence of terrible tragedies, they accept that Clair Sinclair believed she had been here before, as someone called Clara, remorselessly leading them to an unknown endpoint.

Returning to Scotland, Emma begins to unravel a tale of love and faith in a time of medieval inquisition and a remarkable escape story that turns historical orthodoxy on its head. As lost manuscripts and documents, buried history, religious and historical controversies emerge amidst a cast of unforgettable characters, a revenant, a heretic and an occultist collide.

Can Emma Andersson write the story of Clair Sinclair?

fiction

White Wolf
Nick Gosman

Published: May 2025
Paperback: 281 pages
Price: £12.99
ISBN: 978-1-915972-76-7
Available from
The Great British Bookshop
and
Amazon
White Wolf
by Nick Gosman

In a story that pays homage to the latter-day frontier world of Jack London, WHITE WOLF recounts a lone woman’s struggle to survive in the arctic wastes of a forgotten land far from the world that most of us know or could imagine.

Here, in a purest space of bitter cold and uncompromising hardship, Migla is reborn. Forced to discover herself anew, her experience fosters a second catharsis and she becomes a different person.

Delving into her being to find the strength to survive, Migla comes to terms with her new life and falls in love with the animals and plants she encounters there. At times mystical and enchanting and at others deeply disturbing, WHITE WOLF is a treatise on the transcendence of the human spirit and the redeeming power of nature.

“All that is left of me is my robe and my spirit. Now I’m dying, I gave everything away. I don’t have anything to give you anymore. Only my robe and my spirit are in your hands. Now my tears come”

Wallace Black Elk



Nick Gosman gained an insight into what it takes to survive in the wilderness during his formative years climbing and mountaineering in Scotland and Continental Europe.

Since his early years wondering the world’s empty spaces with family and friends, wild nature has come to hold a deep spiritual resonance with the author, which he attempts to bring to his story-telling.