Dave Gibbons

John Gibbons is an environmental journalist and commentator who has been speaking about climate change in Ireland for over a decade. The Lie of the Land is his first book.

John Gibbons

Stella Gibbons was born in London in 1902. She went to the North London Collegiate School and studied journalism at University College, London. She then worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. Stella Gibbons is the author of twenty-five novels, three volumes of short stories, and four volumes of poetry. Her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) was an immediate success and won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. Among her works are Nightingale Wood (1938), The Bachelor (1944), Westwood (1946), and Starlight (1967). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.

Stella Gibbons

Edward Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

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Mary Jane Staples

The house in Caulfield Place, off Browning Street in Walworth, was haunted, or at least that's what the street kids said. So when two men, a woman, and a parrot moved in, everyone was very interested, especially fourteen-year-old Cassie Ford, who was particularly fascinated by the parrot. And it was just about this time that Mr Finch, Chinese Lady's husband, and Boots's stepfather, began to get mysterious telephone calls. Mr Finch had never told the rest of the Adams family - except for Boots - the secrets of his past, or what kind of work he did for the government, and he decided not to tell them about the slightly sinister telephone calls either. It was when he took Chinese Lady on a summer's day jaunt in his Morris motorcar that things began to happen. For, in the Hog's Back Hotel, Chinese Lady went to the cloakroom, and when she came back Mr Finch had vanished. It took all of Boots's ingenuity to discover what had happened, and Cassie's knowledge of the Caulfield Place parrot was to prove a vital clue in unravelling the mystery.

Missing Person

John Masters

An 18-part serialisation of John Masters' chronicles of the Savage family, spanning the years 1825-1946 and set against the backdrop of British rule in India 
 
Based on the hugely popular novels of John Masters, this landmark BBC Radio adaptation charts the history of the British in India through the perspective of one family over several generations. Ranging over more than 120 years, these thrilling tales of love, murder and espionage take us from the expansion of the East India Company to the last days of the Raj and the approach of Independence. 
 
The Deceivers - 1825. When Company official William Savage witnesses a brutal double murder and uncovers grisly evidence of mass ritual sacrifice, he is drawn into the dark world of the thuggee and their murderous, Kali-worshipping cult. Can he escape with his honour - and his soul - intact? Starring David Collings, Saeed Jaffrey, and Terence Alexander. 
 
Night Runners of Bengal - 1856, and William's son Rodney is an officer in the Bengal Army. His life is one of security and privilege - but a guru's prophecy, and disturbing events surrounding the Rani of Kishanpur, are harbingers of seismic change to come. Across India, the Great Rebellion is rising... Starring Michael Cochrane, Eva Haddon, Carole Boyd and Renu Setna. 
 
The Lotus and the Wind - 1879. Britain and Russia are deadly rivals in the 'Great Game'. At the centre of the conflict is Afghanistan, where soldier-turned-spy Lt Robin Savage is attempting to thwart Russian intelligence. Meanwhile, the woman he loves, Anne Hildreth, witnesses a murder en route to Peshawar... Starring Bill Nighy, Juliet Stevenson, John Rowe. 
 
Bhowani Junction - 1946, and India is heading for self-rule. But when Independence comes, what will happen to Anglo-Indians Patrick Taylor and Victoria Jones? As they search for their true identity amidst Britain's turbulent withdrawal, Colonel Rodney Savage hunts for saboteurs seeking to blow up Bhowani's railway... Starring Gary Bond, Sean Barrett and Shireen Shah. 
 
Text copyright © The Estate of John Masters 1951 (Nightrunners of Bengal), 1952 (The Deceivers), 1953 (The Lotus and the Wind), 1954 (Bhowani Junction) 
 
Cast and credits 
Written by John Masters 
Music composed by Malcolm Clarke of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop 
 
The Deceivers 
Dramatised by David Wade. 
Directed by Penny Leicester. 
Executive producer: Colin Venning 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 30 September-28 October 1984 
 
Nightrunners of Bengal 
Dramatised by Barry Campbell. 
Directed by Christopher Venning 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 4-25 November 1984 
 
The Lotus and the Wind 
Dramatised by David Wade. 
Directed by Penny Leicester 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 2-23 December 1984 
 
Bhowani Junction 
Dramatised by Barry Campbell 
Directed by Christopher Venning 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 30 December 1984-27 January 1985 
 
©2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Masters' India Saga

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

Jatinder Verma

Claudia Mayer

Amber Lone

Full-cast dramatised retellings of the two most important epic Sanskrit poems of ancient India 
 
The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are literary classics, the longest epic poems in world literature, as significant as the Bible, the Qu'ran and the works of Shakespeare. Estimated to have been composed over a period of time around the 3rd and 4th centuries BC, they encompass some of the greatest stories ever told - tales of the deeds of gods and men, and the eternal battle between good and evil. Included here are full-cast BBC Radio adaptations of both, directed by award-winning producer Claire Grove and with original music by acclaimed composer Niraj Chag. 
 
Viewed from the perspective of one of the central characters, Yudhishtra, The Mahabharata recounts the struggles of a divided family as they fight over their inheritance and destroy the very thing they seek most - a peaceful and harmonious land. Exiled for 13 years, Yudhishtra knows his cousin will never give up the throne. War is inevitable - but which side will Krishna be on? Paul Battacharjee, Nitin Ganatra and Raad Rawi star in this intimate, accessible reimagining by Jatinder Verma and Claudia Mayer. 
 
One of the world's most popular love stories, The Ramayana centres around the separation and reunion of Rama and Sita. When Sita first glimpses the beautiful Prince Rama, she determines to marry him or die. She wins his heart - but his stepmother's plot sees him banished from his position as heir to the throne. Exiled, he retreats to the forest, where Sita is abducted by a ruthless warlord. Rama enlists the help of an army of monkeys to get her back - but has she betrayed him with the evil ruler of Lanka? Manjinder Virk stars as Sita, with Lloyd Thomas as Rama in Amber Lone's distinctive modern version of the ancient legend. 
 
Also included is the 5-part series Let's Talk About Rama and Sita, in which award-winning poet and broadcaster Daljit Nagra takes stories from The Ramayana into his community and finds the ancient tales alive with contemporary Asian dilemmas. Are Rama and Sita useful role models for men and women nowadays? How is the duo's relationship relevant to marriage today? And what lessons can the Indian epic teach us about loyalty and betrayal? 
 
Produced and directed by Claire Grove 
Music composed by Niraj Chag 
 
The Mahabharata 
Yudhishtra - Paul Bhattacharjee 
Krishna - Nitln Ganatra 
Bhishma - Raad Rawi 
Dhirtrashtra - Sam Dale 
Duryodhana - Zubln Varla 
Arjuna - Paul Bazely 
Bhima - Danny Sapani 
Draupadi - Sasha Behar 
Gandhari - Sudha Buchar 
Kunti - Indira Joshi 
Shakuni - Jude Akuwudike 
Uttara - Saikat Ahamed 
Dramatised by Jatinder Verma and Claudia Mayer 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 4-18 February 2007 
 
The Ramayana 
Sita - Manjinder Virk 
Rama - Lloyd Thomas 
Lakshman - Adeel Aktar 
Ravan - Paul Bhattacharjee 
Surparnaka - Sasha Behar 
Dasarath/Sugreeva - Jude Akuwudike 
Sister/Mandodari - Deeivya Meir 
Bharat - Saikat Ahamed 
Hanuman - Kulvinder Ghir 
Kush - Omar Kent 
Lava - Neil Reynolds 
Dramatised by Amber Lone 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 31 October-7 November 2010 
 
Let's Talk About Rama and Sita 
Presented by Daljit Nagra 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 24-28 February 2014 
 
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The Mahabharata and The Ramayana

Two full-cast BBC Radio dramatisations based on the classic Indian epics

Nina Bawden

Fourteen-year-old Emmie Bean loves her family. But she worries about them too. Her mother is gone (no one will say where). Her father drinks instead of writing. Her younger brother Oliver has started stealing. And older sister Alice disappears on illicit dates.Then there is their isolated house’s menagerie of birds and animals, including Mo the squirrel and Murgatroyd the tortoise, all of which require Emmie’s love and attention. When the Sargents, a childless couple, move in next door, Emmie and the Beans find themselves drawn to this welcoming but aimless husband and wife.Emmie fears the darkness and chaos surrounding them all. But perhaps love burns bright . . .

Tortoise by Candlelight

John Boyne

'The funniest book I've read in ages. Savage but compelling' Ian Rankin 
'A fearless romp with big laughs along the way' Graham Norton 
'Funny, rumbustious, unstinting and wonderfully Hogarthian' The Observer 
'His relish is infectious' Times 
_____________________________ 
 
What a thing of wonder a mobile phone is. Six ounces of metal, glass and plastic, fashioned into a sleek, shiny, precious object. At once, a gateway to other worlds - and a treacherous weapon in the hands of the unwary, the unwitting, the inept. 
 
The Cleverley family live a gilded life, little realising how precarious their privilege is, just one tweet away from disaster. George, the patriarch, is a stalwart of television interviewing, a 'national treasure' (his words), his wife Beverley, a celebrated novelist (although not as celebrated as she would like), and their children, Nelson, Elizabeth, Achilles, various degrees of catastrophe waiting to happen. 
 
Together they will go on a journey of discovery through the Hogarthian jungle of the modern living where past presumptions count for nothing and carefully curated reputations can be destroyed in an instant. Along the way they will learn how volatile, how outraged, how unforgiving the world can be when you step from the proscribed path. 
 
Powered by John Boyne's characteristic humour and razor-sharp observation, The Echo Chamber is a satiric helter skelter, a dizzying downward spiral of action and consequence, poised somewhere between farce, absurdity and oblivion. To err is maybe to be human but to really foul things up you only need a phone. 
 
'Sharp, funny, and beautifully written, but it's also a brilliant reflection on the landscape we now live in' Sunday Times bestselling author, Joanna Cannon

The Echo Chamber

Christine Marion Fraser

The wild childhood of a Glasgow tenement urchin 
 
Born during the Second World War in Glasgow, Christine Fraser was her mother's eighth child. Growing up with her siblings in a tiny flat, learning to avoid her hardworking, hard-drinking one-eyed father, making a menace of herself in the streets along with the other urchins, Christine lived an impoverished life but never once cared. Until she was struck down by a terrible illness. 
 
Suddenly, her wild days of childhood were over. A long spell in hospital completely changed her life. Now she found herself dependent on others for so many of her needs. And on top of that her mother and father died. 
 
Yet Christine was always resourceful and never once looked down. She knew that always there, if you looked hard enough, was some blue up above the chimneys.

Blue Above the Chimneys

Chi Zijian

'A long-time confidante of the rain and snow, I am ninety years old. The rain and snow have weathered me, and I too have weathered them' 
 
At the end of the twentieth century an old woman sits among the birch trees and reflects on the joys and tragedies that have befallen her people. A member of the Evenki tribe who wander the forests of north-eastern China, hers was a life lived in close sympathy with nature at its most beautiful and cruel. 
 
Then, in the 1930s, the intimate, secluded world of the tribe is shattered when the Japanese army invades China. The Evenki cannot avoid being pulled into the brutal conflict that marks the beginning of the end of life as they know it. 
 
'An atmospheric modern folk-tale, the saga of the Evenki clan of Inner Mongolia - nomadic reindeer herders whose traditional life alongside the Argun river endured unchanged for centuries... This is a fitting tribute to the Evenki by a writer of rare talent' Financial Times 
 
VINTAGE EARTH is a collection of novels to transform our relationship with the natural world. Each one is a work of creative activism, a blast of fresh air, a seed from which change can grow. The books in this series reconnect us to the planet we inhabit - and must protect. Discover great writing on the most urgent story of our times.

The Last Quarter of the Moon

A novel from the Vintage Earth collection

Katie Flynn

From the Sunday Times bestselling author Katie Flynn. Three girls, evacuated from Liverpool during World War Two, support each other through hardship and heartbreak. 
. 
It’s 1939, and three ten-year-old girls meet on a station platform. 
 
Imogen, Rita and Debby all missed the original evacuation and now the authorities are finding it difficult to place them. When Auntie and her niece, Jill, who run the Canary and Linnet Public House, offer to take them in, the billeting officer is greatly relieved. 
 
The countryside is heaven to the three little townies, especially after they meet Woody and Josh, also evacuees. They find that by climbing to the top of the biggest tree in the beech wood they have a perfect bird’s-eye view of the nearest RAF station and are able to watch the comings and goings of the young fighter pilots as the Battle of Britain rages. Then they find an injured flier and the war becomes a stark reality. 
 
As they grow up, love and rivalry enter their lives and, twenty years on, when the girls decide on a reunion, many surprises come to light...

Time to Say Goodbye

Cathy Bramley

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THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER from the author of My Kind of Happy 
 
Rich espresso, delicious biscotti and juicy village gossip - will Rosie fall for this new way of life? 
 
When Rosie Featherstone finds herself unexpectedly jobless, the offer to help her beloved Italian grandmother out at the Lemon Tree Cafe - a little slice of Italy nestled in the rolling hills of Derbyshire - feels like the perfect way to keep busy. 
 
But Rosie is haunted by a terrible secret, one that even the appearance of a handsome new face can't quite help her move on from. 
 
Then disaster looms and the cafe's fortunes are threatened . . . and Rosie discovers that her nonna has been hiding a dark past of her own. With surprises, betrayal and more than one secret brewing, can she find a way to save the Lemon Tree Cafe and help both herself and Nonna achieve the happy endings they deserve?

The Lemon Tree Café

The Heart-warming Sunday Times Bestseller

Excitement is running high in the Adams family. Mr Finch, after a long career in secret government work, is to be knighted - which means that Chinese Lady will become a real 'Lady'! What with having to find a new outfit suitable for the occasion, and worrying about whether she'll have to curtsey to the King, the redoubtable matriarch of the Adams family scarcely knows if she's coming or going. 
 
Her grandson Paul, meanwhile, working for the Young Socialists, is worried at what his fiery colleague Lucy will say if she learns that he has titled connections. And Sammy, trying to rebuild his clothing business after the War, is horrified at the growing fashion for denim jeans, which even the young ladies of the family seem to be wearing. Should he forsake his beliefs that girls should dress like girls and start stocking these objectionable garments? 
 
All differences are resolved, as the great day dawns when the Adams family goes to the Palace for their proudest moment.

Appointment At The Palace

An Adams Family Saga Novel

Iris Gower

A sensational story of tragedy, riches, poverty and love from bestselling author Iris Gower. If you like Dilly Court and Rosie Goodwin, you will love this..! 
 
READERS ARE LOVING FIREBIRD! 
"Her characters come to life and feel as if they're [your] neighbours..." - 5 STARS 
"Can't put it down..." - 5 STARS 
"Excellent" - 5 STARS 
"Brilliant" - 5 STARS 
 
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PASSIONS RUN HIGH AMIDST THE WELSH HILLS... 
 
When Llinos Savage's mother dies an untimely death, she finds herself in charge of the family pottery while still a young girl, attempting to keep the business afloat and dealing with the plotting of Philip Morton Edwards, the powerful and rich owner of the rival pottery in Swansea. Her father's return, badly wounded, from fighting Napoleon in France should be a joyous reunion, but instead his presence only adds to her difficulties. 
 
Two men make her world even more complicated: Eynon Morton Edwards, Philip's son - a gentle and sympathetic figure yet despised by his father; and Joe, an exotic outsider, born of an unlikely union between a cultured English businessman and a Native American squaw. 
 
How will Llinos cope with running the pottery, while suffering from the hatred of the Morton Edwards family and battling to suppress her own feelings for the man who seems her most unlikely suitor? 
 
Firebird is the first novel in Iris Gower's Firebird series. The saga continues in Dream Catcher.

Firebird

(Firebird:1) An enthralling, heart-wrenching and moving saga set amongst the Welsh hills

Gracie Hart

From rags to riches? 
 
Eliza Wild has come a long way from her hungry childhood days in a rented miner's cottage on Pit Lane on the outskirts of Leeds. Her sewing skills have enabled her to go into business with a wealthy patron and to give her young niece, Victoria, a better life than she and her sister, Mary-Anne, ever dreamed of. 
 
There's also Eliza's sweetheart, Tom, who is determined to marry her but having worked so hard to get to where she is, will Eliza take a chance on love when it means she might lose everything she has ever worked for?

The Girl Who Came From Rags

Rachael Treasure

Robust country girl Emily Flanagan has been raised in the rugged Dargo High Plains by her mountain cattleman father, but despite the beauty of her High Country heritage she feels lost in life. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, her music-star brother is being consumed in a world of drugs, money and wild women, whilst her father risks losing his family's livelihood. 
 
Emily's problems aren't helped when she finds herself falling in love with the 'enemy', a government man, Luke Bradshaw. As the bill to evict the cattlemen from the mountains is about to be passed, their love seems doomed. And when a savage bushfire sweeps through the mountains, everything Emily knows is endangered.

Through the Fire

Charlotte Bingham

The war might be over but the hardship remains in this setting and story expertly portrayed by the million copy and Sunday Times bestselling author Charlotte Bingham, for fans of Louise Douglas and Dinah Jefferies. 
 
 'Heartwarming and full of period charm... One of Britain's most bankable novelists' - DAILY EXPRESS 
 
'A fitting sequel to the Chestnut Tree' - GOOD BOOK GUIDE 
 
'Bingham writes with her usual flair...' - HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW 
 
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WILL A NEW ARRIVAL MEAN A BRIGHTER FUTURE? 
 
It is 1947, the worst winter in England since records began. 
 
For the women living in the little fishing port of Bexham, the lack of everything from fuel to food has left them reeling. 
 
When Waldo Astley drives through thick Sussex snow into the village in his large American Buick, it is to find Bexham filled with frustrated wives and mothers, forced back behind their stoves after the joy of the victory for which they fought so hard on the home front. 
 
But Waldo is no ordinary character, his effect on all the residents is as warming as the electricity of which there is still such a shortage. 
 
For Judy, whose marriage to Walter has been badly affected by long years of separation, for Rusty, whose miscarriage has been mind-shattering, for Mathilda, whose single motherhood has put her eligibility in jeopardy, and for Meggie, still not recovered from her ordeal as a secret agent. 
 
No matter what the age or circumstances of the person, Waldo Astley is not just a breath of fresh air - but the wind off the sea...

The Wind Off The Sea

(The Bexham Trilogy Book 2): stay warm with this compelling and moving post-war saga set in the rolling winter hills of Sussex from bestselling author Charlotte Bingham

Sammy Adams is always on the look-out for a new business opportunity. When he hears from his son David about the new-fangled supermarkets that are becoming all the rage in America, he immediately starts looking for a suitable site in South London. 
 
Meanwhile, legacies of the last war continue to haunt the Adams family. The mystery of Katje Galicia, the Polish woman who knows something of Sir Edwin Finch's past, becomes a major police enquiry while a beautiful German girl appears, bringing wartime memories back to Tim Adams and his wife Felicity. 
 
Tim and Felicity have much to rejoice over, while the younger members of the Adams family are starting to spread their wings.

Spreading Wings

A Novel of the Adams Family Saga

It is 1946, and with the war at last at an end, members of the Adams family who had been serving with the forces begin to come home. Boots is reunited with Polly and their twins, his son Tim returns to the welcoming arms of Felicity, and with so many others coming back, Chinese Lady finds herself once more the watchful matriarch of the family. But grandson Daniel is still serving in an army unit out in Palestine, where he is caught up in life-threatening circumstances, and his American fiancee, Patsy, counts the days until his return. 
 
Boots, Polly and Mr Finch attend the Nuremberg trials, where they discover the full horrors of the Third Reich and witness Germany's major war criminals being brought to justice. And while the new Labour government struggles with the problems of a country drained by the war, Sammy pursues his business interests with post-war energy and unfailing optimism.

The Homecoming

Can she find somewhere to call home? 
 
Victoria Wild is only four years old but already knows about heartbreak, having been abandoned by her unwed mother when she was only a baby. Luckily her Aunt Eliza was there to take her in but times are still hard on Pit Lane and while Eliza does her best to make sure there is always food on the table, Victoria bears the stigma of her illegitimacy. Her aunt also fears the day when Victoria will start to ask about her father… 
 
But even when Eliza is offered a chance to make a better life for herself and her niece, there are sacrifices to be made. And more trouble is around the corner – in the form of Victoria’s mother, Mary-Anne Wild, who is finally coming home not to be a proper mother to her daughter but to exact her revenge on the man who ruined her life… 
 
A gritty, heart-warming saga perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Maggie Hope

The Child Left Behind

Tommy Orange

Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by an evangelical prison guard, who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial school, dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture and identity. 
 
Years later, Star's son, Charles, is sent to this school, where he is brutalised by the same man. Together with fellow student Opal Viola, Charles envisions a future far away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines. 
 
Full of poetry music, rage and love, Wandering Stars, looks to the past and future across the generations of the Bear Shield and Red Feather family, finding their way through displacement and pain, towards home and hope.

Wandering Stars

Molly Weir

'Poverty is a very exacting teacher and I had been taught well' 
 
The post-war urban jungle of the Glasgow tenements was the setting for Molly Weir's childhood. From sharing a pull-out bed in her mother's tiny kitchen to running in terror from the fever van, it was an upbringing that was cemented in hardship. Hunger, cold and sickness was an everyday reality and complaining was not an option. 
 
Despite the crippling poverty, there was a vivacity to the tenements that kept spirits high. Whether Molly was brushing the hair of her wizened neighbour Mrs MacKay, running to Jimmy's chip shop for a ha'penny of crimps or dancing at the annual fair, there wasn't a moment to spare for self-pity. Molly never let it get her down as she and the other urchins knew how to make do with nothing. 
 
And at the centre of her world was her fearsome but loving Grannie, whose tough, independent spirit taught Molly to rise above her pitiful surroundings and achieve her dreams.

Shoes Were For Sunday

Adolfo García Ortega

As the twentieth century draws to a close, a ship heads for Punta Arenas at Chile's southern tip. On board is Oliver Griffin, who is fascinated by the island and spends his life drawing intricate maps of it. He is on an unusual quest, inspired by a photograph of his grandparents embracing a strange automaton that now lives in the Punta Arenas museum. 
 
This fearsome metal warrior is a sixteenth-century robot from a proposed mechanical army, commissioned to guard the straight against the English. It was discovered on the island by a grieving woman scouring the archipelago for the bodies of her shipwrecked husband and son, and is now the curious axis around which countless stories spin, surrounded by the terrible yet mesmerizing sea...

Desolation Island

Elvi Rhodes

Perfect for fans of Maeve Binchy and Rosamunde Pilcher, this is an emotional and moving novel about fresh starts and new beginnings by multi-million copy seller Elvi Rhodes. 
 
READERS ARE LOVING THE APPLE TREE! 
"The descriptive style...leads you into the story, and you feel as if you know the characters" - 5 STARS 
"A most entertaining book and different from the usual "I have moved house" story." - 5 STARS 
"A brilliant story" - 5 STARS 
"What an emotional book, could not put [it] down" - 5 STARS 
"Very descriptive and sensitively written" - 5 STARS 
 
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A FRESH START IN UNCHARTERED TERRITORY; THE CHANCE TO REBUILD HER LIFE... 
 
When Frances changes her unsettled life in Brighton and buys an old farmhouse in the Yorkshire Dales to run as a guesthouse, she finds herself in uncharted territory. 
 
The villagers seem very friendly and talk about the previous owners of Beck Farm but there seems to be some mystery about them. What had happened to the wife of the previous owner - and why was she still resented? 
 
Can Frances find out while at the same time rebuilding her own life?

The Apple Tree

get swept away by this captivating, heart-warming and uplifting novel set in the Yorkshire Dales

Catherine Cookson

ROONEY 
He was the only one of the dustbin gang who was as yet unmarried. He'd worked for the Corporation as a dustman for fifteen of his thirty-five years, and his mates all agreed he was too canny to be caught, having avoided four widows and two spinsters in ten years. Rooney liked life to follow a pattern - that and his independence was what made him tick. 
 
But it all went flying out of the window when he moved into Ma Howlett's place. And once the rug of his comfortable old habits had been yanked from under him, Rooney found that life was much more complicated than he had imagined! 
 
 
THE NICE BLOKE 
Harry Blenheim had always been known as 'the nice bloke' an inoffensive man whose existence many thought was as dull as ditchwater. But then, at the office Christmas party, he gave in to the demands of the vivacious Betty Ray, and the scandal that followed not only split up his family but ruined his career. 
 
Harry reasoned that, with luck, he could have avoided it all, but the roots of the problem lay much deeper. There was his rapidly cooling marriage, and his hatred of his unscrupulous father-in-law. Now Harry was in real trouble, and it would take all the efforts of his dearly-loved daughter Gail and his staunch friends Janet and Robbie Dunn to help him pick up the pieces and start to live again...

Rooney / The Nice Bloke

One wild night midwife Patty Peel is called to attend a birth on the opposite side of Liverpool. She pedals off into the storm and delivers a baby girl in a filthy slum dwelling, just as the mother dies. The drunk and violent father tells Patty to get rid of it, so she takes the child away, meaning to deliver it to the nearest orphanage. 
 
But Patty had spent her entire childhood in an institution and cannot bear to hand the baby over. However, there are rough waters ahead. Patty has few friends, and fears and despises men, including her next door neighbour, Darky Knight, so how can she hope to bring up the child alone? 
 
She has no idea how the baby will affect the attitude of those around her, nor how her life will change as a result... 
 
The Bad Penny is a heartwarming tale of love and courage in hard times from the hugely popular storyteller Katie Flynn.

The Bad Penny

Lawrence Norfolk

In February 1516, a Portugese ship sank with the loss of all hands a mile off the coast of Italy. The Nostra Senora da Adjuda had sailed 14000 miles from the Indian kingdom Gujarat: her mission, to deliver a rhinoceros to the Pope. The Pope's Rhinoceros tells the stories which culminate in this bizarre incident. Ranging from the Baltic Sea to a flyblown colony in India, from a tribe hidden in the African rain forest to atrocities committed in an obscure town in Tuscany, Norfolk's brilliant novel holds up the true history of the rhinoceros as a mirror to the fantasies and obsessions of the Renaissance.

The Pope's Rhinoceros

HERITAGE OF FOLLY 
The Batleys and the Cadwells owned neighbouring farms on the beautiful, wild Northumbrian coast. But there all similarity ended, and enmity began. For between the two families raged a violent and bitter feud - a feud so powerful that the very name of Cadwell made Ralph Batley seethe with uncontrollable fury. 
 
Into this stormy atmosphere came Linda Metcalfe, a young agricultural student, who innocently became involved in the tension between the two households on the day of her arrival. Employed by Ralph Batley, Linda soon found herself in a very difficult situation. For not only had she unwittingly become a part of the feud, but she began to feel a strange admiration for Ralph, who made it painfully clear that he had no use for her either on the farm or in his life. But then the past erupted into the present, forcing Ralph to change his attitude to Linda and resolving the whole Batley/Cadwell heritage of folly... 
 
THE FEN TIGER 
Deep in the wild fen country, Rosamund Morley lived a cloistered, poverty-stricken existence with her sister Jennifer and her alcoholic father. She was the prop and stay of the family - and it was she who ran for help the night her father set his bed alight after a drinking bout. That night was to change the course of Rosamund's life - for, fleeing through the woods, she met Michael Bradshaw, the man she christened the 'Fen Tiger'. 
 
When she knew more of Michael's past and the fate that had forced him to live in isolation, Rosamund's initial feelings of dislike changed to compassion...and then to something deeper....

Heritage Of Folly / The Fen Tiger

Susan Sallis

They were just schoolgirls - evacuees - when they first met the Reid brothers. Berry was the one who dazzled them - handsome, funny, sexy, he somehow symbolized that golden summer of the war when they all worked together on the farm. Then their world collapsed around them. 
 
Morag, the strongest and quietest of the three girls, lost everything she held dear in one savage bombing. Vallery's beloved brother was killed in the desert war, and Jannie - well, Jannie had never had much to start with anyway. With a father away at war and a succession of 'uncles' passing through her mother's bedroom, she grew up both insecure and promiscuous. But still, she had Morag and Vallery. 
 
When the Reid boys returned from the war it was Berry, the vibrant one, who had changed. Crippled, both in mind and body, he held the dream of Morag in his mind, even though it was Vallery he married. As they settled to a life in the remote cliff-side Abbey, away from everyone, so the old ties between the three girls and the Reid brothers grew more intense, more confused - and Morag, Vallery and Jannie discovered that Berry still had the power to draw them all to him.

Touched By Angels

a compelling wartime saga capturing the lives and loves of three young women by bestselling author Susan Sallis

Once they had been called Orrice and Effel, two bedraggled, scruffy waifs who lived rough off the streets of Walworth. Now they were Horrace and Ethel Cooper, grown up - quite respectable really - and living with their adopted parents, Jim and Rebecca Cooper. 
 
When Horrace saw the pretty girl who worked as a shop assistant in Adams (Ladies Fashion Modes) he was quite bowled over and knew he had to meet her. From then on he was in and out of the shop, buying hats and stockings and ribbons, trying desperately to persuade Miss Sally Brown to come out with him. And while he was laying siege to Sally, his sister Ethel was listening to her poet boyfriend spouting forth his romantic verse. But Ethel's involvement with the poet was to end more dangerously and dramatically than either she or Horrace had imagined and several quite startling events were to happen before Horrace and Ethel's affairs were resolved.

The Young Ones

Fans of Dilly Court, Rosie Goodwin and Kitty Neale will love this moving, emotional and riveting saga from the pen of bestselling author Iris Gower. 
 
READERS ARE LOVING DREAM CATCHER! 
"Captures the imagination" - 5 STARS 
"This was such a gripping story I enjoyed every page" - 5 STARS 
"Really captures the essence of the Welsh culture" - 5 STARS 
"Another fabulous book by Iris Gower" - 5 STARS 
 
************************************************************ 
 
UNEXPECTED EVENTS THREATEN TO DESTROY HER MARRIAGE...AND HER LIFE. 
 
The wedding of Llinos Savage, the young saviour of the Savage Pottery, and the fascinating Joe Mainwaring sets the small sea front town of Swansea ablaze with gossip for Joe is always seen by the Swansea elite as a foreigner and an outsider. 
 
When Llinos's father dies after a long illness, she is devastated, but her grief turns to fear when Joe is accused of his father-in-law's murder by the local doctor and is imprisoned along with thieves and debtors. 
 
There among the filth and dirt, Joe makes friends with an old man, and this brief friendship, formed in the most ill-fated circumstances, proves to be the catalyst to a series of events which unexpectedly threaten to destroy the marriage and the very lives of Joe and Llinos... 
 
Dream Catcher is the second novel in Iris Gower's Firebird series. The saga continues in Sweet Rosie. Have you read Firebird, where the story began?

Dream Catcher

(Firebird:2) A dramatic and heart-wrenching romantic Welsh saga that will have you gripped

It is 1953 - Coronation year - and like all of Cockney London the members of the Adams family are looking forward to the celebrations. Chinese Lady, now Lady Finch, worries that her friends will think she is too grand to mingle with them . But her husband has a more pressing worry - the sudden appearance of the lovely but mysterious Katje Galicia, who knows more than she should about his own chequered past. 
 
Young Jimmy Adams, meanwhile, is enjoying working at the family clothing factory, where at the retirement party for two of the oldest employees, Bert and Gertie Roper, he meets their lively granddaughter Clare. Before long he has offered her a job on the switchboard, and has hopes of seeing her after working hours as well. And brave Felicity, blinded in the blitz, thinks she notices a glimmer of light appearing in her dark world - but dare not tell her husband, in case it is just her imagination... 
 
With the young Queen now on the throne, times are changing for the Adams family.

Changing Times

Alonso Cueto

Adrián Ormache, a high-flying lawyer with a beautiful wife and two daughters, leads a privileged and glamorous life in one of Lima’s wealthiest neighbourhoods. But when his mother dies, he discovers a letter amongst her possessions making shocking claims about her now long-dead husband, Adrián’s father – a commander in the army during the Peruvian Civil War of the 1980s. As well as being linked to atrocities committed against the ‘Shining Path’ guerrillas, it appears that he also kidnapped and kept a local girl, whose family now seeks retribution. 
 
Shocked out of his comfortable existence, Adrián becomes obsessed with finding the girl at the heart of the mystery, and sets out to face the harrowing realities of Peru’s recent past, and uncover the truth about his father.

The Blue Hour

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