Him or You

Him or You is the third book from N L Collier and it follows on from his novel Home Before the Leaves Fall.

Franz Becker has managed to survive his first months as a fighter pilot and he is joined by his best friend Karl von Leussow. It's now the autumn of 1916.

Karl is soon able to transfer his marksmanship skills to his newer weapon and he is reunited with his older brother. A rivalry soon grows, caused by the increasing scores of Karl.

It is the aim of every German pilot to shoot down enough enemy aircraft tp earn the highly desirable Blue Max, though there's more of a chance of dying with a score of zero enemy kills, to be perfectly honest.

The German pilots are aware that their Albatros fighter planes are far superior to the fighter planes that the enemy possess. But even so the Albatros planes are still fairly fragile and also flammable.

Many pilots are doomed to a fiery death, others are consumed with a fear of facing the enemy in combat.

But how long can Franz and Karl continue to fight through the war, as their experiences begin to tell on their minds? And when will the war finally come to an end?

It's unusual to see the German side of the First World War covered in a fictionalised account and, once again, N L Collier has provided his readers with a extremely readable novel.

It's published by Matador at £9.99.

My Dream Mile

My Dream Mile is a very important memoir. It is written by Charlotte Hagen. She had recently graduated from a teaching college, was enjoying dinner with a friend when she hears a loud bang.

She is rushed to hospital in an ambulance and is in a coma after she has suffered from a devastating brain haemorrhage. The "bang" she heard.

When she awakes from her coma she must undergo months of serious rehabilitation work. He needs to relearn all that she knew. She has to learn how to eat, talk an walk all over again.

It's not an easy process and Charlotte goes through times when she feels deep despair, but also there are times when she feels great hope, too.

The memoir is subtitled My Fight Back to Life and that is exactly what it is, her spirited efforts to regain her life.

Charlotte finds herself helping other people with disabilities such as Kirsten who was 15 and had a broken back, the result of a car accident.

She also falls in love with and marries Stig, the neuro-psychologist doctor involved with testing her in the early days of her recovery.

With the help of her family members, the dedicated medical staff, hospital staff, friends and care workers Charlotte is able to work toward her recovery.

It's a truly inspirational book and it deserves to be owned by everyone who has suffered from a serious life changing incident such as a stroke, plus those who work with such people.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99.

Temporoparietal

Temporoparietal is a new novel from Kris Ellis.

It takes a look at the life and times of the protagonist, a young man called Matt Pearce.

Matt has OCD, is something of an educational low achiever, a move buff and a fan of the works of Jack Kerouac.

He finds himself in a bit of a bind. A relationship with an abused teen goes south, north, east and west and in a bit of a panicked existential crisis Matt leave not only his home but also his entire country.

He flees to the USA and decides to take a Greyhound bus trip across the USA.

Why does he do this? To escape from his abused teen called S? In part. But he also feels a desire to make a sort of a pilgrimage to the last resting place of his hero, Jack Kerouac.

Kris is a former Youth Counsellor and bases his novel on "real young people of today."

It's a heady mixture of old school head trips and modern cyber chic.

It's due out on 28th July and is published bu Matador at £7.99/

Adventures of Pepper the Ginger Dog

Adventures of Pepper the Ginger Dog is a wonderful new illustrated children's book written by Jessica Knowles and illustrated by Sophie Cope.

It tells the story of Pepper who is a very adventurous ginger coloured dog.

Ginger has one desire in life. He wants to have a den all of her own. Her owner, Maggie-May who is six and a bit of a tomboy loves the countryside and she advises Pepper to go to Brambeberry Wood. 

Ginger and her animal companions set off across the golf course and some farmland in order to reach the woods.

But they meet with Mrs McClair who is a fiercely territorial farmer who hates the idea of any animals being on her farm! In fact, she chases animals off her farm using her blue tractor who seems as menacing as she does!

Can Ginger and her companions make it to the woods, somehow circumventing the furious Mrs McClair?

This is a charming book for children and every parent or grandparent needs to have a copy.

It's published on 28th July at £7.99, by The Book Guild.

Please Miss, We're Boys

Please Miss, We're Boys is a memoir that outlines what it was like to be a "Miss" (a female teacher) back in the 1960s.

This is the story of Susan Elkin who, in 1968 at age 21, is thrust straight out of a somewhat sheltered teacher training college into the midst of a difficult inner London boy's secondary school.

She has pretty much zero experience, is a somewhat naive young lady with a propensity to wear short skirts and she is facing boys from Deptford, London.

The boys she deals with are typical of inner city boys, they are brash, outspoken, rude, coarse of tongue but also touched with a charming vulnerability.

She concludes that what they would benefit from is some good teaching. And she sets out to make sure that this happens.

With the backing of a group of disparate helpers, colleagues who are honest, open, forthright and a little bit off the wall, she manages to pull it off, finding ways to get the lads to take it easy, to sit down and to get down to some learning and some working.

The book is filled with stuff that has a resonance for me. The children read Erich Kastner's Emil and the Detectives, as did I at about the same time in my secondary school, although we never had a teacher who like Mr O'Riordan who "just blew up."

It's an amazing well-written memoir which tells the reader a good deal about the school but also a good deal about the Deptford of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It's published by The Book Guild at £9.99 on 28th July.

The Buttercup Field

The Buttercup Field is the debut novel from author D J O'Leary.

Warren "Tolstoy" Pearce inherits the manor house of his godfather, he also inherits the cricket field. But along with his inheritance there is also a major problem that comes attached to it.

For the land he now owns borders the Buttercup Field, which is a small strip of land that separates his cricket field from the road.

Jack Bentley, a local farmer, has laid claim to this piece of land on the behalf of the parish council, who fully intend to use the land for residential development.

The villagers are up in arms over the proposals, but despite their spirited opposition, it looks as if the plans to develop the land will go ahead, any way.

But a small candle of hope flickers when a public enquiry is called to look into the matter.

Both sides prepare their arguments, but then documents come to light that cast a shadow of doubt over the whole proceedings. The documents purport to dispute the real ownership of the land.

Who, then, is the real owner of the Buttercup Field? Who, ultimately, will be the victor? Jack Bentley, the parish council and the developers? Or someone else entirely?

And why were two furtive figures spotted, at the dead of night, digging in the field, by Ned, a retired farm worker?

It's a warm and humorous book which is also of a very human scale.

This book has been in the writing for 29 years and I, for one, am glad that it has finally ripened to full maturity!I do hope we don't have to wait 29 years for the next book by D J O'Leary!

It's published by Matador at £8.99 and deserves to be on the best seller's lists.

Master of Starlight

In Master of Starlight we meet the protagonist Leon Dabrowski. He is not merely a physicist, he is an exceptionally gifted physicist, a genius, in fact.

He realises that he has made an utterly astounding discover at the nuclear research centre where he works. He knows that, if his work is applied, that the world is on the very point of obtaining unlimited energy for everyone for the foreseeable future.

He and his colleagues are expecting awards, accolades and praise for the work that they have achieved.

But none of this happens and they find themselves thrust into a dark and alien world of industrial espionage. In fact they are treated almost as if they were a class of criminal rather than as highly respected scientists.

Then his fiancee, a gifted mathematician, Magda Tomala is kidnapped and finds herself held a captive in a sexual fantasy complex that is hidden deep underground.

Leon abandons his work to help a special unit of the Polish police to smash an international sex trafficking gang. 

He goes undercover and finds himself working covertly to spy on an emerging cult society in London, researching the truth aouit a highly organised world in which prostitutes are supplied for the wealthy.

By now the tables are turned on Leon. No longer the hunter he is now the hunted and everyone wants to know where Leon is. An oligarch who he is in the employ of, his work colleagues and the madam of a brothel with links to the Russian Mafiya. Some of the people who are seeking him are very dangerous people in deed. But there's more to the situation than meets they eye. For one of the hunters holds a secret about Leon's early life. A secret that is potentially shocking.

But can Leon prevail against them all and perhaps even learn to use what he learns to his own advantage?

A retired nuclear engineer, this is Keith Short's first novel and it's published by Matador at a very reasonable £7.99.

It's probably destined to be in the holiday luggage and read on beaches all over the world this summer.