Explore this site to find out more about my books

Just follow the links, so you can find out about the books I’ve written and how to buy them (or some of them).  And you can hear what I’m writing, or planning to write, now.  Also I’ll tell you something about myself, what got me into the daft yet marvellous activity of writing and how I set about it.

As well as all that you’ll find out how to contact me direct, how to get me to visit your school, library, college or book group and what I do (and how much I charge) when I get there.

The second book is a rerelease of: 

Out of the Mouths of Babes 

This novel was first published in 1997 by Scholastic.  On the back of the cover I wrote:

Some things in society I don’t like.  This story is my attempt to understand them.

Did I understand them any better when I finished it?  I doubt it.  Do I now?  We’ll have to see.

I was very pleased with the book when I first wrote it, but the events took place sixteen years ago and I thought I’d never reissue it as an ebook because it was out-of-date and obsolete.  But when I looked at it again, I realised it wasn’t anything of the sort.  I thought in 1997 that I’d finished it.  But I hadn’t.  There were serious implications for the characters and terrible consequences to the situation in which I left them in and their story was nowhere near finished.  So I added a whole new part which brings it up to the present day and, I think, makes a new book out of it

In a few days I will add more about the book, how and why I wrote it and what I was trying to do.

Find out more about new ventures in electronic publishing at

www.authorselectric.blogspot.com

Twenty-nine great authors join together to turn books which should never have been put out of print into born-again treasures at the touch of a button on Kindle.

Read our daily blogs. Mine is on the 14th of every month.

The Joslin de Lay Mysteries ride again!

All the Joslin de Lay Novels, now under the series title of The Long Journey of Joslin de Lay, are on Amazon Kindle, with wonderful new covers by Anastasia Sichkarenko.  Click on each cover to be directed to thr Amazon UK Kindle store.

Click here for an introduction to the series and descriptions and reviews of all the books.

Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick

My first ebook is up and running on Kindle!

Four slightly weird stories. Murder, mystery, horror, fantasy, magic and a little bit of football at the end.

Buy it here

Divided Loyalties

DIVIDED LOYALTIES, the sequel to ELLEN’S PEOPLE, is published by Walker Books.  

'Divided Loyalties is a magnificent achievement which should surely endure for years as an outstanding novel of the Second World War for young readers.' Linda Newbery / Armadillo

'This is a superior teen fiction from a master of the history for children genre.' Verbal Magazine / Belfast News Letter Group

It takes up the story where ELLEN’S PEOPLE left off.   Ellen and Matthias are married.  They have three children, Walter, Paul and Anna.  They have left Lambsfield and now live in Peterspury, a village in Northamptonshire.

Soon, war clouds gather again.   They hit Matthias worst.  He lives in England now and from his vantage point sees how wrong the course Adolf Hitler is leading his countrymen is.   But he is loyal to his family, who follow the new ideas.  His nephew Helmut is in he Hitler Youth and he wonders whether if he still lived in Germany would he be any different.

Walter, their oldest child, hates his father.   This hatred began in his early childhood: he has long forgotten its cause.  He hates it that his father is German while he wants to be completely English.  Paul is quieter and much happier.  He has passed to go to the Grammar School.   Anna, the youngest, thinks only of her music and already is playing the violin.  

As war comes, Ellen’s family is thrown into turmoil.  There is much to happen, with turmoil and heartbreak, before the war is over and things begin to right themselves.

Here are two extracts which I hope may whet your appetites.

The first is when Walter is in the RAF.   The Battle of Britain is raging.  He is an engine mechanic servicing Rolls Royce Merlins and stationed at RAF Biggin Hill, Kent.  He has just met Julie, a WAAF, and is desperate to know her better.  On August 31st, 1940, the Luftwaffe launches a major raid on Biggin Hill.

Download extract 1 coming soon.

The second comes very near the end.  The war has been over for nearly a year   Anna is now a music student at the Royal College of Music.  At Easter she comes home and goes to a concert in which Elgar’s Cello Concerto will be played.

Download extract 2 coming soon.

You can buy DIVIDED LOYALTIES direct from Walker here or from Amazon here.

I’ve already started writing the third in the trilogy.

DIVIDED LOYALTIES was shortlisted for the Calderdale Book of the Year 2009

Ellen's People in America !

Ellen's People is now published in the USA by Candlewick, under the title Without Warning: Ellen's Story 1914-1918.   Buy it here.

Read a new feature about the writing process for Ellen here.

ELLEN’S PEOPLE is now published in the UK.   Set in the First World  War it tells the story of Ellen who, when the war starts in 1914 is a fifteen year-old girl living in a sleepy village in Sussex, perfectly content with life with her family.    But terrible events which affect her personally make her change her mind: when the war ends four years later she has been on a long journey which has atken her far away from Lambsfield – and far away also from her early, innocent life.

Find out more about writing the novel here.

ELLEN’S PEOPLE was longlisted for the Leicester, Doncaster and Highland Book Prizes and shortlisted for the Hampshire Book Prize.

The Hare Trilogy

Hare’s Choice, Badger’s Fate, Hawk’s Vision

NOW YOU CAN HAVE ALL THREE TOGETHER!

HARE’S CHOICE has been republished by Barn Owl Books.  Click here to order.

At the same time, BADGER’S FATE and HAWK’S VISION are published by Back to Front as Print-on-Demand books.   Further details here