And The Buntings Flew (Novel)

A story of prejudice, cowardice, bravery and childhood in 1970’s Belfast as a young girl and her family become unwittingly embroiled in escalating sectarian violence.

In 1975, eight-year-old Purdey McDowell is an unseen witness to an apparent terrorist attack on her father’s life. Purdey believes she recognises one of the gunmen.

Purdey faces an overwhelming dilemma: tell the grown-ups that she knows who shot and injured her father, or say nothing and live with the terrible knowledge. Either way, her life and the lives of those close to her are in danger.

Purdey must find their way through fear, hatred and betrayal, with the help of some unlikely allies, and even more unlikely enemies.  Loyalty is no longer a word upon which anyone can rely, on either side of the political and religious divide.

The Bondage of The Soil (Novella)

The idea for this Horror/Sci-Fi novella (planned word count 30-40K) came to me towards the end of 2015, starting life as a short Lovecraftian Christmas tale. Having put together an outline, I found enough historical/geological weirdness in the location in which the story is set, which happens to be near my current home town, to write a longer story. Prepare to be unsettled. I aim to write this up quickly as an exercise in increasing my word count productivity, as the story needs considerably less research than And The Buntings Flew.

Forty-five-year-old soon-to-be divorcee Stella Travis might be having a nervous breakdown. Her daily, mundane cross-country drive to the nearest motorway junction has taken a very strange turn.

Is Stella ill, or are her visionary experiences related to the new bypass being excavated from ancient green belt land that lies sleeping alongside Britain’s oldest road? Has Stella stumbled over something brooding, something that spans the ages from before the Roman invasion of Britain and leads from the English countryside to beyond the stars? Or is it all in her mind? The struggle to be free from the ties that bind is universal