Rosa's Story

Rosa's Story is a new superbly illustrated book for children by author Terry McManus.

It brings to children the magic and splendours of the world's rainforests.

Whilst he was employed with Jaguar Cars, Terry was given sponsorship to travel to Belize to paint the wildlife there, concentrating (of course!) on the jaguar cats that live there.

The intention was that prints of his works would be made and sold to raise much needed funds for The World Land Trust.

Terry found that the whole environment there, Mayan culture, wildlife, landscape, etc., but especially the big jungle cats, capture his heart.

Rosa's story is a follow up to his first novel Under the Star With a Leopard.

Readers will follow Rosa on a magical and beautiful journey, but what, exactly, is the end result for Rosa?

It's a super tale that is very well illustrated with first rate colour illustrations and this book deserves to be owned by any child who even showed even a passing interest in big cats.

There are also some interesting facts and figures about jaguars, too.

It's published by Matador at £7.99 and can be bought here https://goo.gl/wdCFDG

Counting the Ways

Counting the Ways is a novel that is contemplative in nature, written by Jude Hayward.

Set in the decade of the 1980s, it looks back to an age -not that long ago to many of her readers- when instant communications just did not happen. No tweets, no Facebook wall, no Snapchat or Instagram and e-mails something we might have read about but, at that time, had no likelihood of ever receiving or sending one (how times change!) so communications between individuals were more slower and more contemplative.

We read the story of Grace Barnes who meets, and falls in love with, Archie Copeland.

Grace is thrilled to have met someone who seems an ideal match for her. Well, he shares the same obsession for reading that she has and enjoys the same intellectual pursuits, too.

However, her mother Hester, and Grace, herself, are shocked when Hester's husband Fergus makes an appearance at the wedding of Grace and he beau.

The surprise is a not unnatural reaction to his sudden reemergence after exiling himself from his family by running away to live on a hillside in rural Wales some 30 years previously.

Shocking soon after their wedding Grace is perturbed by a growing distance between herself and Archie. What, exactly, is happening with him?

When they take a impromptu holiday on a Greek island, all seems well, but then Archie vanishes.  

Then Hester, Grace and Fergus take a detailed look at their relationships and how they had reached their current situations.

It's a thoughtful novel filled with multiple layers and costs £9.99 from Matador. You can purchase it at  https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

The Well of the Dead

I love a good murder mystery or a good crime story, so when a story from a former police officer, Clive Allan, comes along, that's a very good day, as far as I a concerned!

This is the second DI Strachan novel form Clive Allan and it features the terrible murders of Duncan Fraser, a distillery owner, and of his wife, Laura.

The small Scottish Highlands village of Glenruthven is shattered by the twin homicides and once again readers meet DI Neil Strachan as he leads the investigation, aided and abetted by his detective partner, Sergeant Holly Anderson.

They find themselves locking horns with a ruthless adversity, a criminal who seems to have a strange obsession with his Jacobite ancestry.

But what, exactly, is really happening?

However, all is not well with the lady in his life, his long-term partner, Cat. Did she lie to him? She's acting strangely, but is she having an affair or is it something else?

At some point his professional life and his personal life begin to blur together and unless he is very careful, his professional reputation could be at risk.

This novel grips from the beginning and it's a great murder mystery that is utterly enthralling, filled with characters that are well-rounded, with intelligent, insightful writing to keep you wondering until the very end.

It's published by Matador at a modest £9.99 and is available to purchase here https://goo.gl/wdCFD.

Miss Perfect

Being a social worker was everything for Miss Madge Perfect.

She had devoted her entire life to using the social work system to improve the lot of others, but most especially children.

But now, she is look back at her life from Ireland and she recalls when, yes, social work really was her life.

However, that was before Dan, her ambitious deputy, entered inot a conspiracy to have her removed from her position within the County Council Social Work department.

The name they gave it was restructuring, but whatever name they gave it, it meant there was no place for Miss Perfect, someone who always put her clients first.

Oddball professor of sociology Mitchell is brought in by County Hall to "evaluate service delivery" in Madge's office and this make Mage decide on a spot of evaluation, herself, or rather reevaluation, of her outlook to work and also life.

Mitchell's tenure is enlivened when he caught fire, but then he is dogged by disgrace when a female student brings forward some allegations about his behaviour toward her.

Madge's life seems to continue as normal, until a child in her care goes missing and a body is discovered.

Will County Hall sacrifice her to save face? It seems likely, until help comes from a somewhat unlikely source, a bouncer, who works at the Golden Slipper massage parlour.

But Billy knows Miss Perfect from his time a a child client in his youth and he has some information that he believes will help her. But the information comes at a price. Is it a price she is willing to pay?

But perhaps there might be some really big changes for Madge and for certain other people, too?

It's a heartening book and it is certain that the author Bernard Hall knows probably more about County Council Social Work departments than he might like to admit, as he has the office politics and the machinations of County Hall down to a T!

I can heartily recommend this book, which is published by Matador at £7.99.

It is available for purchase here https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

The Cow Who Fell to Earth

One night a flock of sheep are doing what most flocks of sheep do at night, when, suddenly, they are interrupted by a star that lands CRASH!!!! right on top of the poor sheep!

The only thing is, it's not a star that has fallen from the night sky, it's a jet pack wearing little cow who is lost.

Unfortunately attempts at communicating with the cow are stymied by the fact that all the cow can say is "WOOO".

He is desperate to get home but this is going to be a tough job if nobody can understand anything he tries to tell them!

However, the sheep all rallied round the poor little fellow and they got him a blanket and, obviously they must have been British sheep, because they also brought him a cup of tea.

They asked him to tell them his story, which he did, but "Wooo, woo-woo, woo-woo" meant nothing to the sheep. Though they did decide that he needed a name and they gave him the name Dave.

Dave could see she had a problem at that point!

The sheep asked Bertha the cow for help, but she couldn't understand the little cow, either.

Kevin the cat, Pamela Pig and the farm dog Rufus were all consulted, but they all couldn't help.

But then the situation becomes a bit more complicated when some chickens managed to launch themselves into space using Dave's jet pack.

With the aid of a photograph of Dave and her family, the sheep realise they have to get Dave back home to the Moon.

But how will they do this without the aid of the jet pack?

Find out how when you read the book!

It's a fantastically silly book which should tickle the funny bone of almost all children and of a lot of adults, too, it's an ideal book to share with the little ones. It's written by Nadia Shireen who also executed the charming and vibrant illustrations, too.

It is published by Penguin Books and costs £6.99 and should be bought for every child in the land.

You can purchase it at https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

The Tin Heart Gold Mine

In her novel The Tin Heart Gold Mine, Ruth Hartley brings her readers as fast-paced story that relates the life of an artist in the city of London, and brings to life in vivid detail the landscape and politics of an African nation.

It draws for some of its inspiration the author's childhood which was spent in Zimbabwe. She later studied art in Cape Town and learnt politics in Natal.

In the 1960s she left South Africa, seeking asylum in London.

The protagonist of her novel is Lara who is an artist. She has two loves in her life, Tim, who is a journalist who seeks out the truth and Oscar who is an older businessman who is suave and the owner of a gold mine, the Tin Heart Gold Mine.

The novel opens in 1985 and sees Lara and her lover Oscar who are living in Chambesi, an area of wilderness, beauty and hidden danger.

But sometimes things just are not meant to be and when we next meet Lara it is 1997 and Oscar is just a memory and she is now married to Tim, the journalist.

But who is the father of Lara's son? Is it Tim? Or perhaps it might be Oscar?

The marriage is under strain because of Lara's previous love for Oscar.

Tim must leave London for an assignment in Africa, meanwhile a traumatised Lara decides upon a course of therapy in order to help her work through the various issues that face her.

But is everything what it seems? Tim feels that Oscar is a dangerous and untrustworthy man and he attempts to warn Lara of his suspicions.

But exactly how dangerous is Oscar? Is it possible that his secrets are far more dangerous than they suspect?

Could Lara be in danger from Oscar? Is Tim's life at risk?

The book is published by Matador at £9.99 and can be bought here  https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

From Crawley to Carlisle a trawl around league two

Chris Upfield, who is a dedicated Portsmouth FC fan has decided to write a book which is a humour filled observation of the experiences of fellow fans of lower league football clubs.

Chris invites us to join him and his family and friends as they journey to  faraway places (Well, what passes for far away in Britain)  as they follow their beloved Pompey (Portsmouth FC) and the variable successes or otherwise of the team that Chris (on page one, mind!) cheerfully describes as "the team with the worst away record in the league. Even so, on this particular occasion hey'd managed to give poor old Cambridge a 6-2 drubbing. Away to Cambridge.

Chris' style is humorous and quirky. Within the first couple of pages he manages to find himself wondering what difficulties a Cambridge support with one tooth might have with the pronunciation of certain letters of the alphabet, how a toothless Spanish could ever get served when he was attempting to order a beer, or how a toothless German World War 2 officer could have ever convinced a POW that they had ways of making people talk.

He also wondered if the local taxi firm has been taken over by South-west Trains, after waiting for a taxi in the freezing cold for the best part of an hour.

His group had decided to splash out on a hospitality package for the match with twelve tables crammed into a room the size of an office, where everyone was entertained with a football quiz sheet consisting of ten questions.

There then followed a three course meal of mushroom soup with bread rolls (thought to be of the "bake in the oven" variety) eaten well before the 45 minute late soup, in order to stave off the temptation to resort to cannibalism, the soup was described as lacking in mushrooms and having "a tarmac sort of hue."

The main course was a steak and stilton pie (light on the stilton) with tinned peas and a bowl of vegetables believed to be frozen, which was totally inadequate for a table of 11 hungry adults.

The lemon dessert, however, was described as "passable."

Chris then turns his eye to the other VIP guests and notices former stars form previous footballing eras, then there was the report on the match with the surprising 6-2 result.

The rest of the book follows Chris and his party of family members and friends as they travel around the country from football club to football club, taking in cities such as Carlisle, Crawley, York, Oxford, Ipswich and the like.

The book is a good and amusing read for diehard football fans and those with only a passing interest in the "beautiful game." Especially for those who follow teams in the lower leagues.

It is published by Matador at £8.99 and is available for purchase here https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.