The New Writer - Readers' Room

A World Invisible - Joanna O'Neill (Wooden Hill Press)
“You’re telling me the Victoria and Albert Museum only exists because seven Victorians needed to hide a handful of objects for a hundred years?” Finding she can draw nothing but vines, Rebecca reluctantly puts her ambitions as an illustrator on hold when she is drawn into the machinations of a Victorian secret society founded to make safe an interface between parallel worlds. But first she has to grow up. Dragged into helping a cause in which she barely believes, Rebecca finds herself playing Hunt-the-Thimble amongst England’s oldest institutions. Over one summer she will break a code, discover her astonishing ancestry, and half fall in love – twice. But what begins as a game will shake her to the core.

Roses and Rain - Heather Walker.
A comprehensive exploration of the life and work of James Elroy Flecker, poet, playwright and novelist. This full-length biography explores Flecker's Cotswold childhood, his school life at Dean Close, where his father was the headmaster, Uppingham, Oxford, and Cambridge. Walker then explores his career in the Levant Consular Service, his marriage to Greek Poetess Hellé and his attempts, despite ill-health, homesickness and lack of money, to establish himself as a writer. Walker s meticulous research provides an insight into not only Flecker s short life but also the lives of other salient contemporaries such as Rupert Brooke, Ronald Firbank and Lawrence of Arabia. The narrative skilfully builds a picture of the formative events in Flecker's life, which enables the reader to observe the evolution of this gifted young poet. Roses and Rain also presents a reproduction of the original manuscript of his most famous poem, The Golden Journey to Samarkand, and other citations from Flecker s published and unpublished works. After Flecker's untimely death in 1915, at the age of 30, his play Hassan was produced on stage to great acclaim and continues to be performed today. Roses and Rain is the first Flecker biography to be published in over 30 years.

Heather Walker's novel, Summer Christmas, a gentle tale of love and adventure set in the New Zealand of the 1950s, is also available from Neil Miller's Publications,c/o Ormonde House, 49 Ormonde Road, Hythe, Kent CT21 6DW. ISBN 1 904177 16 6. Signed copies of both can be obtained from the author - walht@aol.com

Is Death Really Necessary - Judi Moore
It is 2038. In Edinburgh a furious father-daughter relationship has finally come to an end with the death of Theo Goldstein at the age of 106. By this time most of his organs are plastic, developed and produced by his own prosthetics company, Gold’s. To everyone’s surprise he leaves his beloved company to his daughter, Teddy, who is terminally ill herself with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. She quickly realizes why he has done this, and the potential of his last, controversial and now illegal project: Self Heal. Using nanonics, tiny machines, “smaller than a bacterium,” home in on a single target, “like sharks in a feeding frenzy, sucking out of each target the single thing they are programed to destroy, rendering it harmless.” Researchers at Gold’s race to revive and complete Theo’s project under Teddy’s impatient guidance. All hope Self Heal will cure her MRTB at the molecular level and provide a cure for all of the world’s killer diseases. But one of the research team has a hidden agenda and a very different, far more destructive use in mind for nanonics. published by YouWriteOn.com

Bitter Fame - Emma Lee (YouWriteOn.com)
This novel looks at the dark side of celebrity. "Ellen Davies buys a celebrity-owned house and paparazzi continue to hang out on her doorstep. Ellen, who had moved to escape a violent ex-boyfriend, Neal Perkins, needs to keep out of the limelight. Bitter Fame is what happens when she can’t,” is the fifty word synopsis that won Emma Lee a contract with YouWriteOn.com who were offering a limited number of publishing slots. Emma has previously had a collection of poetry, “Yellow Torchlight and the Blues” published by Original Plus. She’s also a member of Leicester Writers’ Club. http://bitterfame.webs.com

Middlewitch - Heather Parker (Drollerie Press)
Alicia is a young witch with a mission: to protect Middlewitch, a sleepy little hamlet consisting mostly of a church, a senior citizen’s home, a pub and two constables. You’d think such a small town wouldn’t have problems with dark forces, but you’d be wrong. With the help of her cats, the Women’s Institute and the Vicar, Alicia confronts demons, vampires, an American…and even the City. She finally has a boyfriend, but is she able to share her unorthodox life with James? And more importantly, is she strong enough to learn to get on with his mother? http://drolleriepress.com/bookshop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=88

Mind Secrets - Rita Hemraj (New Generation Publishing)
What if I told you that happiness is not an accident that happens on some days and not on others? What if I said that your happiness has been unlearned and all you need to do is relearn happiness to experience it? In its true form, happiness is permanent and infinite. It is not something 'out there' to be obtained but lies within. Happiness is in the grasp of each and every one of us who strives for it. For those of you who want to know why and how, in this book we explore the real nature of happiness. We learn how to distinguish temporary happiness from lasting happiness by using a happiness framework. This framework comes with it practical steps for how to achieve the happiness that we all seek.

Living in Perhaps - Julia Widdows (Doubleday)
Carol always resented her desperately dull Middle England family so when she is invited to meet the vibrant, bohemian family next door in their messy house full of books and paintings and empty of rules, Carol soon begins a secret double life over the much-hated garden hedge. Here Carol voices her greatest fantasy and tells her first major lie...that she is adopted. But on her 16th birthday Carol receives the shock of her life when her wish comes true. And as, years later, Carol frenetically narrates her story from a psychiatric unit, we realise how it affected her and those around her in the darkest of ways.

Hope against Hope - Sally Zigmond (Myrmidon)
It is 1848, the Year of Revolutions. Stoical and industrious Carrie and carefree and vivacious May lose both home and livelihood when their Leeds pub is sold out from under them to make way for the coming of the railway. They head for Harrogate to find work and lodging in the spa town's burgeoning hotel trade. But the sisters fall prey to fraudsters and predators and are also driven apart by misunderstanding, pride and a mutual sense of betrayal and resentment.

Breathing in Colour - Clare Jay (Piatkus)
‘Your child is missing - presumed dead.’ Hours after receiving the phone call that every mother dreads, Alida Salter flies to India to search for her backpacker daughter. Theirs has been a difficult relationship, but now comes the toughest test of all… Alida must find the courage to trust her maternal instincts, or lose her daughter forever.

Bad Altitude - Jack Leonard (Authorhouse)
Normally, the phrase ‘Taylor Made’ is associated with the highest quality. Be it precision golf equipment or misspelled gentlemen’s clothing, those words have always denoted the cream of the crop. The only thing Mike Taylor made was mistakes; even his choice of career as an airline steward despite being allergic to the public. The best he could say about his life was that nothing had yet proven fatal. Then he meets Anna. Convinced that she is ‘the one’, Mike tries to get noticed using all his classic moves, which mainly involve begging and alcohol. The good news is that Anna does indeed notice him. The bad news is that so does Anna’s psychotic ex-boyfriend. Whether Mike’s cloud has a silver lining or a rock bottom is yet to be seen, but one thing’s for sure… It’s not going to be a smooth ride. Better fasten your seatbelts…

Beyond the Broken Gate - Sylvie Nickels (Oriole Press)
The theme is the effect of war on succeeding generations. Of three main threads, the first concerns an Australian, Jake, the second is Luke, whose adored grandfather was badly damaged in the First World War, the third is Minkie, a young Bosnian woman who has returned to war-torn Sarajevo after being fostered through her teenage years by a couple in a village in middle England. The village of Daerley Green in Oxfordshire is where all three threads come together as the truth of the various circumstances unfolds and unlikely relationships are made or broken. This is the sequel to the author's first novel, Another Kind of Loving.

A Touch of the Sun - David Evans (Crocus Books)
A steamy ride through the bleak streets of Apartheid South Africa. Simon Brown is from a working-class district of Victoria. More interested in sex than politics, he is embarrassed by his mother's liberal familiarity with the local Coloureds and appalled by his school friend's ambition to join Special Branch. From stuck-up Elizabeth Carter to Thandi, the fiery daughter of the family maid, he keeps falling for the wrong girl. After being propelled into the frontline of conflict, Simon is forced to choose between his white privileges or turn law breaker. Also available by David Evans, Portrait of a Playboy and other stories (Headland)

Wringland Sally Spedding (Macmillan)
Abbie Parker is just starting her new job as sales negotiator for a prestige housing development in sinister and vaporous Black Fen - rumoured to be the most haunted corner of England. One morning she arrives to find her office door ajar, and a strangely dressed woman waiting inside, intent on laying claim to just one particular building plot. Is Abbie being drawn into a conflict with the vengeful spirit of a woman betrayed over a century earlier? For other Sally Spedding titles click here.

How To Make it in IT - Alan Stewart (Virgin)
Ever wanted to earn a million as an IT consultant? Flitting from one company to another whilst making your fortune? Or wondered how to start your own IT company? Forget what your career teacher told you and get reading...here is the perfect start for anyone wanting to break into the business: containing essential practical information, this is your one-stop guide to making some serious money in the most vibrant industry going.

Julia Gets A Life - Lynne Barrett-Lee (Bantam)
Forget all that stuff about finding the inner child; it’s sexual healing Julia Potter is after when husband Richard strays from the marital bed. The one he’s been playing in belongs to Rhiannon. He’s sorry, or so reads his Post-it apology, but, as he says, ‘It’s so hard being a man ...’ Look out also for Lynne Barrett-Lee’s new novel, Virtual Strangers, a witty and romantic thirty-something read about a woman who thinks she may have found her soulmate - via email, published this August. For other Lynne Barrett-Lee titles click here.

A Special Need For Inclusion - Julia Widdows (Children’s Society)
Research with parents of over 30 children with disabilities reveals the frustrations and obstacles of everyday life. There is also the added difficulty of ensuring that their children are included in the wide community. Findings stress the need for well-planned service provision.

Escape From The Rat Race - Nicholas Corder (Elliot Right Way Books)
In the rat race, only a rat can win, but there is an alternative, and one for which thousands of people worldwide are beginning to opt. The author has done it, and here he shows how you too can change your way of living to one of simplicity, increased happiness and immense satisfaction. For other Nicholas Corder titles click here.

Creative Pathways: Freeing the Writer's Inner Voice - Suzanne Ruthven (ignotus press)
A highly practical approach to producing innovative writing, shows how to create those exciting new ideas that appeal to editors and publishers. For other Suzanne Ruthven titles click here.

Mallingford - Alison Love (Black Swan)
Painter Stella Deighton became tennant of Mallingford, an 18th-century mansion in the Sussex South Downs, during the 1920s. But it is now the 1990s, and things must change. Stella is dead, and it is up to Cosima, Stella's granddaughter, to fight to keep a roof over her head.

The Common Lot - Margaret Pelling
This work is a collection of studies on health, medicine and poverty in Tudor and Stuart England. It concentrates on the health experience of the majority of the population in this period - artisans, labourers, servants, the poor and women, and especially older women. Some of the themes that run through the text include the high level of anxiety about health and illness at the time, the lay involvement in medicine, the effects of urbanisation on the health of vulnerable age groups and the sensitivity of chronic disease as an indicator of social conditions.

Die Cast - Alan Dunn (Piatkus) Billy Oliphant is a control freak who is out of control. Carrie Radcliffe is an unlikely angel of mercy whose company is plagued by vandalism. When she asks Billy to solve her security problems, he suspects foul play but has to decide between the safety of his family or his conscience.

Raising The Roof - Jane Wenham-Jones (Bantam) Whatever hapened to Cari's wish list? Make some money, lose some weight, find someone to have a grand pasion with, and become so rich and successful that Martin is consumed with jealousy. Will any of them ever come true? An unputdownable debut by a sparkling and original new voice in women's fiction. For other Jane Wenham-Jones titles, click here .

Working Girls - Maureen Carter (Creme de la Crime)
When a fifteen-year-old is found murdered, it soon emerges that she's not only a schoolgirl but a Working Girl. Is Shell killed because she's on the game? And are the other girls on Bev's manor in danger? Within days, one disappears and another's on life support. There's no shortage of suspects, just a distinct lack of evidence. Then a second girl is found dead and media pressure mounts. Bev's boss turns a blind eye as she puts her life on the line by going undercover with the girls to trap the killer. Forget the clichéd 'tart with a heart'. These girls are lassies with lip. And warmth and wit. Unlike some of her colleagues, Bev sees them as Nice Girls not Vice Girls. Working Girls is a story of prejudice and pre-conceived ideas; lies and half-truths; deception and detection. For other Maureen Carter titles click here.

The Chase - Lorna Fergusson (Bloomsbury)
Gripping and deeply moving story about a couple who move to France to escape tragic memories. However, Netty and Gerald Feldwick discover all too soon, as they try to settle in and become influenced by the haunting echoes of age-old violence in their French house, that you can never escape the past.

People Who Made History In Ancient Greece - Nicola Morgan (Hodder Wayland)
Spanning ancient Greek history from 800 BC until 146 BC when the Romans conquered Greece, this book tells the story of the great civilization through the lives of nine ancient Greeks who each represent a different aspect of its history, including Homer, Sappho, Pericles and Alexander. For 8-12 year-olds. For more information on Nicola Morgan's literacy books for younger children visit www.childliteracy.com

Mondays are Red - Nicola Morgan (Hodder & Stoughton)
Mondays are red. Sadness has an empty blue shell. And music can taste of anything from banana puree to bat's pee. After a devastating bout of meningitis, Luke struggles to regain his health and understand its mysterious legacy - the synaesthesia that makes life a kaleidoscope of mixed sensations. See also www.nicolamorgan.co.uk For other Nicola Morgan titles click here.

A Different Kind of Love - Jay Mandal (BeWrite Books)
A collection of beautifully crafted love stories - sad, humorous, heartwarming - made ‘different’ simply because key characters share, not only passion and compassion, but gender. “I would place Jay Mandal near the same level as the other leader of short fiction in this field, Edmund White.” Neil Barnett, Speakout magazine. See also http://www.bewrite.net/authors/jay_mandal.htm

What The Eye Doesn’t See - Alice Jolly (Pocket Books)
Set between London, Gloucestershire and Brussels this first novel is part love story, part family saga, part thriller; written in the three voices of the main characters, the time frame is the present but segues into the past. Alice Jolly writes with a fresh voice, captivating her readers form the first page and not letting them rest till the last. “Beautifully paced, beautifully understated and terrifically assured ... she's so good on clothes, sex, love, death and the prisons that family members can make for each other.” Barbara Trapido

Gathering the Clans: Tracing Scottish Ancestry on the Internet - Alan Stewart (Phillimore)
Scottish ancestry is easy to trace on the Internet, because Scotland is leading the world in making its family history records available on-line. So now, wherever you live, it is easy to grow a Scottish family tree! All the main records will soon be on-line: births, marriages and deaths (from 1855), old parish registers (some back as far as 1553), wills and inventories (from 1500) and ten-yearly census returns (1841-1901). In the future, church, land, poor relief, taxation and heraldry records are expected to become available too. Whether new to family history, or to Scottish research, or to the use of the Internet for either, everyone will find this book a comprehensive and easy-to-follow guide.

Cry of the Justice Bird - Jon Haylett (PaperBooks)
Armstrong McKay is an ordinary Essex school teacher whose life would have remained contentedly mundane had he not fallen for Rebecca, a lovely, moral girl determined to make her contribution by taking a teaching contract in a small, central African country. Armstrong's life spirals out of control when she is killed in a road accident ...

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