Abie Longstaff is the eldest of six children and grew up in Australia, Hong Kong and France. She knows all about squabbling, chaos and bossing younger sisters around. So she logically began her career as a barrister. She started writing when her children were born. Her favourite childhood books were Hating Alison Ashley, A Little Princess, Maura's Angel and The Black Stallion and she sneakily reads them again sometimes. Abie lives in Hove with her family.

Abie Longstaff

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Colin MacFarlane

Colin MacFarlane was born in the Gorbals in the 1950s, 20 years after the publication of No Mean City, the classic novel about pre-war life in what was once Glasgow's most deprived district. He lived in the same street as its fictional 'razor king', Johnnie Stark, and subsequently realised that a lot of the old characters represented in the book were still around as late as the 1960s. Men still wore bunnets and played pitch and toss; women still wore headscarves and treated the steamie as their social club. The razor gangs were running amok once again, human waste ran down the tenement stairs, and filth, violence, crime, rats, poverty and drunkenness abounded, just like they did in No Mean City. 
 
 MacFarlane witnessed the last days of the old Gorbals as a major regeneration programme, begun in 1961, was implemented, and, as a street boy, he had a unique insight into a once great community in rapid decline. He witnessed drunken fights, gang battles, police corruption and even the occasional stabbing, slashing and murder. But the Gorbals had another side: one where ordinary hard-working people were trying to survive in what was arguably once the most notorious area in the world. 
 
 In this engrossing new book, MacFarlane reveals what it was really like to live in the old Gorbals.

The Real Gorbals Story

True Tales from Glasgow's Meanest Streets

Martha Long

Martha is now in her thirties. Her daughter has left home and she is lonely and vulnerable. The hard knocks have taken their toll on her health, and as she looks into the years still lying ahead of her, she shakes her head, feeling she hasn't the heart or the strength to go on. 
 
 As she teeters on the brink of a nervous breakdown, a phone call summons ghosts from the past. She discovers that one of the family is dead and the others need her help. Martha returns and when she comes face to face with the evil, psychotic Jackser, she can no longer suppress the nightmares of her childhood. 
 
 A suicide attempt sees her admitted to the 'mad house', where a hunger strike takes her even nearer to death. But finally she sees a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. Could love in an unexpected form pull her back from the brink?

Ma, I've Got Meself Locked Up in the Mad House

Jan de Vries

In Emotional Healing, world-renowned alternative-health expert Jan de Vries turns his attention to the myriad of mental and emotional conditions that he has seen increase amongst his patients in recent years. 
 
 This important new addition to the Jan de Vries Healthcare series offers practical advice on how to cope with the emotional effects of unhappy relationships and broken marriages, suggests ways of eradicating depression and suicidal thoughts, reveals how to combat feelings of resentment and jealousy, and advises on how to avoid the health pitfalls linked to modern working life, such as stress and anxiety. 
 
 The book pinpoints effective ways in which to overcome feelings of guilt and trauma that arise from unfortunate situations such as road accidents. It also explores the wealth of complex emotions related to degenerative diseases, such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy, and offers helpful tips on how to cope at such times. 
 
 Emotional Healing is an essential handbook for those of us who are emotionally and mentally affected by the many pressures of life in the twenty-first century. It will lift spirits and bring some positivity back into the lives of those who may have started to give up hope.

Emotional Healing

Complementary Solutions for a Stress-Free Life

Clare Gee

Addicted to coke and booze and reliant on selling her body for cash, Katie, the heroine of Clare Gee's bestselling Hooked, can no longer cope with the life she's created for herself. She has messed up badly and thrown everything away. 
 
 Mentally, she is an anxious wreck and physically she is in pieces. Yet she is terrified of who she will become without her vices. She has to do something, though, and her choices are get help or die. She leaves London and admits herself to a residential rehab centre for three months. 
 
 In Unhooked, reformed addict Clare Gee draws on her own experiences of cocaine addiction, alcoholism and prostitution in telling a moving story of a young woman battling through hell to create a sober life for herself. There are threats of expulsion from rehab and relapses, but through dedication and honesty, Katie begins the long journey to becoming clean and finding peace of mind.

Unhooked

The Rehab of a London Call Girl

In Neck and Back Problems Jan de Vries deals with many of the most common problems relating to the spine. Drawing on his own vast experience of helping patients overcome their suffering and on various case histories, this book contains practical advice for those millions who endure the agony of backache. Simple exercises and remedies are outlined, together with proven hints towards self-treatment. Slipped discs, tennis elbow, 'whiplash', bursitis and problems with vertigo are all discussed in layman's terms. Neck and Back is a veritable treasure trove of information from one of the world's leading practitioners in this field.

Neck and Back Problems

Mary J. MacLeod

Life on the remote island of Papavray in the 1970s was a world away from Mary J. MacLeod’s urban existence in the south of England. And this peaceful environment was just what she was looking for. 
 
While indoor toilets were still something of a luxury, and ‘teleeffissions’ could produce terror in some of the older residents, the glory of the mountains and the sea combined with the warmth of the island people meant she had found a haven for her family. 
 
Mary’s post as district nurse gave her a unique insight into island life, and her stories of the troubles, joys, drama and comedies endured by her patients make this a charming and humorous account of community life on a small island in a bygone era.

The Island Nurse

Philip Carlo

Philip Carlo's successful and acclaimed books reveal the truth about notorious characters such as LA serial killer Richard Ramirez, Mafia contract killer Richard Kuklinski and crime-family boss Anthony Casso. Working closely with the DEA , Carlo also wrote the definitive account of Bonanno Mafia family assassin Tommy 'Karate' Pitera. 
 
Carlo's investigative achievements were remarkable, but what wasn't known to his readers was that, while working on The Ice Man, he learned he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a form of motor neuron disease. Suddenly, after years of penetrating the minds of killers, Carlo was himself being pursued by the grim reaper. But rather than lying down and succumbing to the disease, Carlo continued to work right up until his death in 2010. 
 
In The Killer Within, Carlo provides an intimate account of his relationships with Ramirez, Kuklinski and Casso and reveals intriguing information about writing his bestsellers while simultaneously coping with ALS as it slowly began to steal his life away.

The Killer Within

In the Company of Monsters

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