Without Borders

Without Borders is a moving novel from Susanne Burge.

The novel follows a young Doctor called Ana, who is working at the Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan.

Rahim, who is eleven years old, tells Ana something. She fails to recognise the significance of what he said until he suddenly vanishes.

Ana feels impelled to go on a rescue mission to save the young boy, and she goes to a secretive field hospital which is located in the besieged town of Old Homs.

However, she barely escapes with her life, fleeing from ISIS forces. However, she has put those who assisted her in fear for their lives.

Unfortunately she is captured by the Shabia and put in the hands of their evil leader.

She witnesses acts of love, of betrayal and of unspeakable horror as she tries to make sense of the situation around her. Who can she trust? And is everyone quite what they seem?

This is an extremely well-written and thoughtful novel. It is published by Matador at £8.99 and is available here https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

Colonel Belchamp's Battlefield Tour

Colonel Belchamp's Battlefield Tour is a moving piece of fiction which does start from some historical wartime fact.

In May 1940 Dunkirk was not the only place to see a strong, but ultimately hopeless, defensive action. For there was also the defence of the port town of Calais, often overlooked by the history books.

Author Adrian Crisp has used the defence of Calais as the starting point for his novel.

The book begins 24 years later, in May 1964. Former soldier James Butland is devastated by the recent death of his young son. 

He decided that he would return to France to visit the battlefields where, as a young man of 18 years of age, he took part in the defence of Calais.

Whilst there he takes stock of his life, looking back over the lead up to the Second World War, the war years and the years following that dreadful conflict.

He had been on the point of going to study at Oxford University, but like so many members of his generation his plans were spiked by the advent of war, when he becomes a young soldier.

He is wounded in the conflict and is hidden from the invading Germans by a young medical student named Agnes. Following a brief love affair she is able to help him return to England.

After his return to full health James is posted to Tunisia where, during vicious fighting, he is wounded again, this time so severely that his has to be discharged from active service.

Weary from fighting and killing James decides that he would rather be helping people and saving lives, so he opts for a career in medicine and trains as a Doctor.

James' career as a man of medicine flourishes, but his life is shattered when his son who is none years of age is killed in a road accident.

Whilst he is visiting France he decides to see if he can find Agnes. He does so, but is shocked to learn that she bore him a child.

This news brings a crisis of conscience to James. What should he do? How should he react to this utterly unexpected news?

This is a very thoughtful novel and it is to be hoped that Adrian Crisp will have a long career as a novelist ahead of him.

The book is published by Matador at £7.99 and can be purchased here https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

You Can't, You Won't A Life of Unarmed Combat

You Can't, You Won't, a Life of Unarmed Combat is a stunning memoir from Liverpudlian comedian Gary Skyner. Written with the assistance of Carol Fenlon, Gary tells his life story as one of the Thalidomide children.

Born in 1959 with a range of severe physical disabilities after his mother was prescribed the drug Thalidomide to calm her morning sickness when she was pregnant with Gary.

As one of the first Thalidomide children born within the UK, his life was both challenging and difficult because the drug also impaired his physical development. Indeed medical opinion varied from: "He'll not live, long" to "He'll never amount to much."

However, Gary is living proof that belies both of those medical opinions and Gary just goes to prove that there's nothing a person cannot achieve if they set their mind to it.

In his autobiography Gary shows how he was able to defy all the odds to become a successful and very popular comedian and motivational speaker.

It reveals the traumas caused by the breakdown of the marriage of his parents and of his somewhat difficult relationship with his father. Gary remains convinced that this was as the result of the strains and tribulations of raising a disabled child in 1960s Toxteth.

Gary became a passionate campaigner for the rights of Thalidomide victims to receive proper recompense and recognition for the problems that Thalidomide had caused them and their families.

This is a truly heartwarming book and it is published by Matador at £8.99 and will make a great Christmas gift for lovers of biographies.

You can order it here https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

Red Sky Over Dartmoor

Red Sky Over Dartmoor is a novel from debut author Tony Rea.

It takes the reader back to A september morning in 1920. The sky above the small Devonshire village is a vivid red and three former soldiers are meeting together.

The story slips back to 1918 and moves forward with a train of linked events, including examples of bravery, rivalry, cowardice and even homicide.

Canadian artillery captain Marc Bergeron can't keep himself out of strife. Bombardier Ryan is his sidekick, an Irishman who is handy with his fists and a dead shot with a Mauser pistol.

Whilst participating in the fighting in France, Captain Bergeron meets the utterly useless and incompetent Major Cross and the reprehensible Captain Wadham. Cross and Wadham both seem for some reason, to have an axe to grind with one of their own NCOs.

When two suspicious deaths take place which are not connected to the military actions of war, Captain Bergeron is hell bent on finding out who was responsible and to making sure that the two murder victims get justice.

Which is why one of the three old soldiers will soon meet his death, belated though it might have been.

This is an extremely well-researched and very well-written book which is an ideal Chirstmas gift for those who like a well-crafted novel.

It's published by Matador at £8.99 and can be ordered at https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.

AspergerWorld: My Fairy Jam Jar

Aspergerworld: My Fairy Jam Jar is a new book from Autism activist Joely Colmer through which she shares her own inspirational life story.

The book takes us through the life journey of Joely. From her childhood challenges, to to her successful completion of her education to her current position as a passionate and crusading autism activist and a campaigner working tirelessly to raise awareness amongst the public.

However, there's a good deal more to this book than that. It's also a highly useful resources for people who are living on the Autistic Spectrum, offering them useful tips and hints for coping with their daily lives.

There is also useful information for their family members and for professional health personnel on how they can best offer support and appropriate assistance to the person on the Autistic Spectrum.

It is an extremely thought-provoking and very honest and moving book.

If you have an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, have a family member or a friend who is ASD, if you are a teacher, a Doctor, a nurse, a psychologist or a school counsellor, you must buy this book.

Seriously, you must buy this book. There should be copies in every hospital resource library, every school, every doctor's surgery, every university and every FE college throughout the UK.

It is published by Matador at £12.99 and will make a wonderful Christmas gift for anyone who needs to learn more about Autism.

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

Jan

Jan is a fictional thriller from former military officer Peter Haden. But it is based on the true life story of his Uncle Jan.

Jan was a young Polish boy who, due to the depression of the 1920s, was forced to seek employment in Germany, just over the border.

During the invasion of Poland by Nazi germany his sister and father brutally lose their lives and Jan's brother remains on the family farm to work with the Polish partisans.

As Nazi persecution increased, Jan was asked to help by assisting his employer's Jewish daughter to flee to a farm on the Belgian border where she could seek refuge.

After making a motor journey across Germany Jan manages to reach England.

He is given intensive specialist military training to enable him to undertake missions for the Allies.

He undertakes two missions, the first with the Polish partisan forces. He then meets up with the Jewish girl, Renate, with whom he must make reports to the Allies on the German build-up behind the Western front.

Renate and Jan are captured by the Gestapo and they must make good their escape to flee across the border into Belgium and then on to England.

It's a riveting and thrilling book, and is the third military thriller from Peter Haden.

It's published by Matador at £9.99 and really should be in the Christmas stocking of any fan of military thrillers.

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

Storyteller

Storyteller, On the Journey of Poetry, is the third collection of poems from David Hamilton.

It is like no other collection of poems that I have ever read before. And I mean that in a very good and very positive light.

David Hamilton is a poet for the modern age, yet he is able to drawn upon the poetic traditions of Homer, Chaucer, Pope and Tennyson.

It's not just a collection of poems, it contains the distilled wisdom of the author, plus a collection of extremely high quality photographs (all taken by David Hamilton) that really add to the vitality of this anthology. 

There are poems, sonnets and stories told from the perspective of a variety of historical characters, all smartly linked together by the weaving prose of David Hamilton who acts in the guise of a literary master of ceremonies. And what splendid ceremonies they are!

The book is published by Matador and costs £12.99 and will make an excellent Christmas gift for the poetry reader in your life. And for the non-poetry reader too, for that matter.

Will also be a useful purpose for poetry lecturers, too.

It can be purchased here https://goo.gl/wdCFDG.