The Truth in Fiction is a collection of eighteen short stories written and collated over the last ten years. Many of them are stories written about the streets of London, the cities of Europe and locations as far afield as the mountains around Wanaka in the South Island of New Zealand. Some of these stories are narrated by the central character, whereby we listen to his or her appreciation of events, and the remainder are told in the third person, where the reader is invited to draw his or her own conclusions from the tale. In ‘A Prodigious Epiphany for Padraig’, written in Santiago de Compostela at the end of walking the Camino de Santiago, we meet Padraig O’Rahilly as he passes the evening enjoying the fiesta of the literary heroes of Galicia and during which he confesses to his young guide the motivations for his pilgrimage to the city. In ‘Geneva’, a young UNHCR lawyer, waiting for his flight to be called, is approached by a timid Iranian refugee, who asks the lawyer to record in a journal the strange tale of how he has come to be in the city. Finally, ‘I Know’ tells the story of two women who meet for the first time at a wake and come to realise they both knew the recently departed rather better than many of those who have come to pay their respects. The topics of each story vary between those of love and loss, coincidence, taking gentle pokes at social prejudice and how it is that the harsher lessons of life are often those most valuable... The Truth in Fiction will appeal to fans of short stories, and those who enjoy travelling.
In the early hours of Monday 28th December 1908, a girl steals through the garden of Villa Mazzini. Lilla is on her way to meet Enzo and together they intend to leave on a steamship for a new life in America. First though, they must evade his father’s spies, for Don Carmelo believes the daughter of a fisherman unworthy of his son’s affections; and second, they must survive the greatest earthquake in the city’s long history. In July 1943, Mira receives a visit from Lieutenant Aldo de la Grascia at her family home in the village of Ganzirri. Mira is fond of the officer and without his continuous gift of provisions, her café would have closed long ago. However, the war has already made her a widow and Mira isn’t sure if she is ready to love again. Then, late one night, an Italian sailor knocks on her door and asks her to help his companion, a wounded British naval officer. And in the summer of 2018 on the beach at Capo Peloro, Angelica is intrigued by an Englishwoman who speaks Sicilian in the Messinese dialect and who seems more than a little melancholy. In the afternoon, the woman goes for a swim and is caught in the strong tides that run through the Strait. Angelica wonders whether the woman has put herself in danger intentionally and knows there is little that can be done to prevent her from drowning; that is until a feluca appears. A three-part novel based on historical events, Constant Tides follows the loves of three courageous women through the spring, summer and autumn of their lives in the Strait of Messina, Sicily.
Young journalist Simon Peckham is seeing the New Year in at a London nightclub when he first notices Soraya, the daughter of an Iraqi refugee. His evening isn’t going to plan, so he steps out to get some air and watches as paramedics attend to an old rough sleeper, Tom, in an alley close by. The next morning at the local hospital, Simon enquires after Tom’s condition and is surprised to meet Soraya, who tells him that 3 men had assaulted both her and Tom, and that a second rough sleeper came to their rescue. Sifting through Tom’s meagre possessions out the back of the club, Simon stumbles across a notebook, the entries in which are written in a curious code. Will he decipher it? What will it lead to? And why is Soraya keeping the second rough sleeper secret from the police? Peter Crawley has worked amongst rough sleepers and has interviewed many former servicemen and refugees to lend authenticity to the story. The Wind between Two Worlds is a gripping novel that twists and turns as its characters conceal and reveal in equal measure. Readers who enjoy clever plots, secretive characters and a modern, original storyline will delight in this well-researched, expertly-crafted book.
Richard Ross rubs his fingers over his scalp. His eyes sting from the salt and the hours of concentration and his ears buzz with silence. He can hear someone shouting. No, not one man, but two. They are arguing in Italian and their argument develops an angry, threatening edge. One of the men begins to scream and plead, “No, per favore, no, Ci–”, followed by a muffled choking and scuffling of feet. And then, silence: both profound and chilling, and pressed beneath the enormous weight of the fog. Arriving on the unspoiled island of Lipari, off the coast of Sicily, Ric Ross carries with him a letter of introduction to Valeria Vaccariello, an aging star of Italian cinema who lives alone in the House of Strangers; a woman known locally as la strega – the witch. Ric is also befriended by Il Velaccino, a sailmaker who seems to know everyone and everything that goes on in the island. But when a politician is shot dead, Ric’s search for his family’s history soon grows into a quest to prove his innocence... Ontreto is a contemporary crime thriller, told through the eyes of a young man who comes to the island of Lipari in search of his forebears. It is the standalone follow-up to Peter Crawley’s first novel, Mazzeri.
“Some come to Strand-next-the-Sea to visit the stately homes, stroll along the promenade or paddle in the cool waters of the North Sea. Others come because they are drawn by the secrets of their past...” Boarding House Reach is a captivating novel about five individual characters who meet one weekend in a guest house. Located on the Norfolk coast, The Reach offers sanctuary for guests Hacker, Phoebe, Audrey, Philip and the landlady, Stella – all of whom are trying to escape their past. As the strands of their individual stories are woven together the complexity of the novel is revealed. Each guest will face the realities of their personal lives and, as the hours tick away, confess their sins. In a story which encompasses blackmail, rejection, infidelity and love the characters of Boarding House Reach must accept they may have the freedom to run away but they will never escape the brutal reality of their tangled lives... This contemporary story that reaches into the confidential world of The Reach’s guests is suitable for readers with a passion for engaging with compelling and genuine characters.
It is the last summer of the twentieth century in Calvi, northern Corsica, and an old man sits watching the kites fly. The festival of the wind is a lively and colourful celebration, but the old man's heart is heavy, he has heard the Mazzeri whisper his name. He accepts that people prefer to believe the dream hunters belong to the past and yet he knows only too well that at night they still roam the maquis in search of the faces of those whose time has come. Ten years later in the high citadel of Bonifacio, in the southern tip of the island, Richard Ross, armed with only the faded photograph of a Legionnaire standing beneath a stone gateway, finds the locals curiously unwilling to help him uncover his family's roots. He rents a villa on the coast and meets the singularly beautiful Manou Pietri, who enchants him with tales of the megalithic isle, its folklore and the Mazzeri - the dream hunters. For a while Ric's life beneath the Corsican sun is as close to perfect as he could wish. Then a chance encounter with a feral boy turns Ric's life upside down, and he is drawn deep into a tangled web of lies and deceit. On an island where truth and legend meet, where murder is commonplace and most crimes go unsolved, only the Mazzeri know who will live... Set in Corsica, Mazzeri is a contemporary novel about this complex mediterranean island, its people and its traditions, which has been influenced by the author's own experiences.
From the Irish village of Castlewarren in the 1850s to Lanesboro, Minnesota, The Irish Rebel follows the life of Edward Ruth. A story of survival, love, war, and life fashioned around a historical framework, this fictionalized account portrays the hardships of Ireland and provides a glimpse of the American Civil War through the eyes of an immigrant. Based on writings from his great-great-grandfather's journey, author Peter L. Crawley has portrayed Ruth's struggle to extricate himself from the bogs of starvation and cultural ambivalence to make a name for himself as a dentist in his new country, while he tries to prove himself worthy for the hand of one Irish maiden. The journey takes him from Ireland during "The Times of Troubles," with England's insensitive colonial policies, to the American Civil War and Morgan's Raiders, led by the infamous John Hunt Morgan. The Irish Rebel tells the tale of the striking similarity between the American Civil War and England's disgraceful disavowal of Irish Home Rule. This novel provides a vivid account of that historical period as portrayed by one who has Gaelic blood in him as well as a sentimental dose of unflappable Irish wit.
This volume offers a collection of seventeen of the more important papers written by the late Peter Derow during the course of his career. With a detailed introduction by the editors, it is essential reading for anyone interested in Roman imperialism or Polybius, and Rome's rise to Mediterranean power.
In 1995, for various political reasons, the French colonial government, in the form of Francois Mitterand's socialism, locked horns with Tahiti's independence movement, resulting in the burning down of the island's only international airport. This is the setting for a Christian adventure story about American Jack Laughlin, who marries into the Polynesian culture and all that it encompasses. Gone are the fabled white sand beaches, mango trees and lingering tropical days. In their place, he discovers that the islands have become volcanic excuses for greed, corruption and a hedonistic lifestyle. When his eldest daughter falls victim to the temptation of living the local lifestyle, Jack turns to his wife, the granddaughter of the last chief, for help. Jack Laughlin is shocked when he finds out she isn't exactly on his side. Indeed, she has a secret of her own. Their relationship mirrors that of the government, as each side strikes out to get what they want, regardless of its moral value.
What is so wrong with stealing a countrys patrimony? Its cultural heritage? When you think about it, the cave on the Leeward island of Raiatea hadnt been visited in over two hundred years. No one should have known that, by chance, a group of modern day desperadoes had found the sacred cave where Polynesian royalty buried their artifacts. Still, a practicing doctor from Bora-Bora, with the help of a cat burglar, did. Yes, they did, but they werent caught. A certain Thompson Tommy Mitchell did. He got caught, that is, although he claimed his innocence. Innoncent? Sure, you bet. Yes, someone whose only notoriety up until then had been that he helped dole out the free chicken at a downtown Tahitian soup kitchen to help the street urchins. Was he working another angle to cover his tracks? In any case, Thompson Mitchell should have stayed at the soup kitchen instead of ending up in other peoples business, like the doctor and his fiancée from Bora-Bora. Still, Thomspon Mitchell had no idea what would happen the day he left Tahiti for a work junket in the Leeward islands.
A squeeze in bridge occurs when a player is forced to make a discard that is damaging to his hand. To the squeezed player, this may seem like a stroke of bad luck, but a squeeze can be an easy and calculated offensive strategy. Recognizing the opportunity and then successfully implementing the strategy takes timing and smart play. Simple Squeezes provides the tools to achieve both. The results will be less bad luck and more winning hands for beginners and intermediates alike.
Of all that England has to offer, the Cotswolds has some of the loveliest countryside and architecture. The key is limestone, the golden oolite of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire with the tawny brown of Warwickshire.Buildings of the Cotswolds covers over a 100 Cotswold villages and towns: colour and mono-chrome photographs, specially taken for the book, highlight the fine detail of the buildings, the stone and its variations, the style of construction and local building specialities. Together with the vivid text they reveal features of manor houses, cottages, fine farm buildings with great tithe barns and churches, some dating from pre-Norman times. This is a highly informative and entertaining book which delight all who love this beautiful region.
The story of the pivotal struggle between the Creek Indians and an insatiable, young United States for control over the Deep South—from the acclaimed historian and prize-winning author of The Earth is Weeping The Creek War is one of the most tragic episodes in American history, leading to the greatest loss of Native American life on what is now U.S. soil. What began as a vicious internal conflict among the Creek Indians metastasized like a cancer. The ensuing Creek War of 1813-1814 shattered Native American control of the Deep South and led to the infamous Trail of Tears, in which the government forcibly removed the southeastern Indians from their homeland. The war also gave Andrew Jackson his first combat leadership role, and his newfound popularity after defeating the Creeks would set him on the path to the White House. In A Brutal Reckoning, Peter Cozzens vividly captures the young Jackson, describing a brilliant but harsh military commander with unbridled ambition, a taste for cruelty, and a fraught sense of honor and duty. Jackson would not have won the war without the help of Native American allies, yet he denied their role and even insisted on their displacement, together with all the Indians of the American South in the Trail of Tears. A conflict involving not only white Americans and Native Americans, but also the British and the Spanish, the Creek War opened the Deep South to the Cotton Kingdom, setting the stage for the American Civil War yet to come. No other single Indian conflict had such significant impact on the fate of America—and A Brutal Reckoning is the definitive book on this forgotten chapter in our history.
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