For composer Nick Mortimer it is a dream come true when he and his sister Kate inherit a house in the tiny village of Clodock in a remote corner of Herefordshire’s Golden Valley.

But it is a dream that soon turns into a nightmare when they are confronted by a series of mysterious and frightening events.

Their search to find answers unearths a tragic tale of blighted love set against the background of the disturbing political and social divisions of the late 1920s.

After a lifetime supporting other artists, Chris has finally found time to fulfil his own creative ambitions as a writer.

His first novel The Swinging Pendulum of the Tide was published in 2018. It is a story of the loss and rediscovery of love and faith, set against the background of the wilds of Bardsey Island off the North Wales Coast.

In the The House beneath the Black Hill, he combines his fascination in the telling of a good ghost story with his interest in the turbulent politics of the late 1920’s, highlighted by the remarkable electoral victory of journalist and author Frank Owen over his Tory rival in Hereford in the 1929 General Election.

As a former Popular Events Director City of the London Festival, Director of The Poetry Society and Chief Executive of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers & Authors (now The Ivors Academy), Chris knows all about the challenges faced by the creative community. He’s well versed in politics too having contested Hereford and South Herefordshire for the Liberal Democrats in the 1979, 1983 and 1987 Parliamentary elections where he came within a whisker of taking the seat.

He is chair of the Learning Skills Research Foundation and of the Francis W Reckitt Arts Trust, a patron and trustee of Hereford’s Courtyard Arts Centre. a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Freeman of the City of London. He was awarded the BASCA Gold Badge of Merit for service to the Music Industry in 2009.

He is married with two grown-up sons and lives with his wife Sheila in the village of Garway on Herefordshire’s Welsh Border.

At forty, Natalie’s life seems to be a mess.

Her teenage daughter, her ex, her horrible ex-mother-in-law, none of it is much fun.

But when she heads to France backed up by her wonderful friends, everything changes -

love to a Frenchman beckons and life starts to get better and better.

The ex settles down with another woman, which is no bad thing but her daughter has tough times ahead...

‘I scrambled from the table and ran outside to the old orange tree. Flinging my arms round the trunk I burst into tears and began banging my head against the bark...’

A novel that looks at the challenges African teenagers and young adults face, especially in the poorer and more remote areas: forced marriages, families below the poverty line, inadequate schools, harsh discipline and bullying. All for discussion in school, this book will help young people realise their identity and their innate ability to create a better world for themselves and for others.

At the age of three, Winstone Wamalwa’s father died and his mother ran away to avoid being forcibly married to unmarried uncles who tormented him, and he had to live with unloving grandparents. He had no shoes to wear when he went to school. The school had no water or electricity and only an earthen floor on which pupils sat. Discipline was harsh – a friend collapsed from malnutrition when ordered to run round the playground for failing his exams.

But Winstone had talent. He gained a place in a prestigious school in Nairobi – only to be bullied for his poverty and from tribal rivalry by pupils from well-off families. In desperation he attacked a perpetrator and was only saved from expulsion by a Maasai pupil with strong principles who stood up for him.

In an astonishing twist, his art teacher then claimed him as her son but, believing his mother was dead, he fled in horror and was unable to return to school until an unknown benefactor paid his fees. It was then that Winstone at last saw a light at the end of a dark tunnel which led to an entirely different lifestyle.

Born in Cambridge, Roger spent many years working with children in a voluntary capacity in Kenya, Nepal and the UK. He is married to a Norwegian and has four daughters. He gives many talks and lectures on East Africa and Kenya in particular, to children and adults alike, with a view to helping them understand the hardships so many suffer from in third-world countries.