Claret Press – serie

This children's thriller, based on the author's own experiences in London, is about coming of age and the importance of family and friends during World War II.

It's the height of the Blitz. Night after night, waves of German bombers pound London streets, determined to bring the city to its knees.

As the air-raid sirens wail, Alan and his best mates, Tommy and Wilkie, skip school to play among the bombed-out homes of their neighbors. They are soon sucked into a gang of looters run by infamous Duggie, but the police are on their tail and catching up quickly. Even if they escape, they could still fall victim to the dangerous skies above them. 

This thrilling story, based on the author’s own experiences growing up during the Blitz, is an antidote to nostalgia. It shows the terrors of the Blitz and how war brings out both the best and the worst in adults and children alike.   

Appropriate for Keystage 2.

"Brilliant and timely political who-done-it." Alan Steele-Nicholson, press officer for former US Senator Jacob Javits 

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Murder - week after week, month after month, across the country. Pushed beyond his limits, one man takes on the establishment, the gun lobby, and corruption at the highest levels. To break the power of entrenched elites, he leads the nation on a grisly hunt.

He's hunting them. And they're hunting him. One side will have to blink. In the meantime, people are dying. Term Limits is a thriller from the front pages of our newspapers. It couldn't be more topical.

Justice will be done, but what kind of justice?

High on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, near the ancient Temple of Apollo, a group of young idealists protest against the despoiling of the planet outside a European governmental conference. Inside, corporate business lobbyists mingle with lawmakers, seeking profit and influence. Then the charismatic leader of the protest goes missing.

Oracle is about justice, from the brutal, archaic form of blood vengeance prevalent in early human societies to modern systems of law and jurisprudence, set in the context of a democracy. This is the law and equality under the law which allows democracy to thrive and underpins the freedoms and safeguards for individuals within it. The story is interlinked with Greece's past, as the ancient cradle of democracy and source of many of western ideas of government, but also to its more recent and violent past of military strongmen and authoritarianism in the twentieth century.

Oracle also considers, in the form of a crime thriller, the politicisation of the police and the justice system and how that will undermine justice, especially following the banning of Golden Dawn, the now criminal organisation which wrapped itself in the mantle of politics. It touches on the new academic discipline of zemiology, the study of 'crime' through the prism of the harm it does to people, especially those without power.

It had been solely personal. Not anymore.

Determined to lay the ghosts of her past, Cassandra Fortune asks a former head of GCHQ for help, only to receive a message from beyond the grave. A riddle to puzzle out and a murder to solve.

She revisits an old betrayal in an ancient land, uncovering subterfuge and treason. Yet, as Christmas approaches, a shadowy presence haunts her footsteps. His criminal network shattered, the diabolical villain is back. And he wants what's his.

What is real and what only appears to be? Who can be trusted and who is double-dealing? Cassie must find the truth. And survive.

One of only four girls from the 160 children in her primary school to pass the eleven plus, Sylvia Vetta was the first in her family to enjoy higher education and got to enjoy that post-WWII wonder: upward mobility.

Battling racism in Smethwick in the West Midlands during the most racist election in British history changed her life. The slogan bandied by the supporters of the Conservative candidate was, 'If you want a n***er for a neighbour, Vote Labour.'

By chance she met Indian-born Atam Vetta. Being less than 21 years of age, her boss could legally inform her parents of her young man and his racial background without Sylvia knowing of it. Sylvia and Atam married anyway and 55 years later, they're still married.

When Sylvia married Atam, mixed relationships were rare and viewed with hostility, not just in the UK. Sylvia's story embraces a revolutionary change in attitudes in the UK. Marriages and partnerships like hers are no longer rare and it is predicted that by 2075, the majority of the population will be of mixed ancestry.

She was plunged into a challenging new reality. Through Atam, she learned about glass ceilings for ethnic minority Brits. Atam's research in quantitative genetics confronted institutional and individual racism with the knowledge that discrimination had been justified by scientific racism. Atam set about helping to expose those lies.

Nine months in the USA opened her eyes to the probability that she was more disadvantaged being a woman than being married to a man of colour. Changing careers, she entered into a world where women were mostly excluded: business. Sylvia set about changing that, creating a vibrant and successful business career.

Peppered with facts and research, Sylvia's life showcases the personal within the political, the successes and setbacks of forging a fairer, more tolerant and better Britain. Part of a unique demographic that challenges traditions, Sylvia's life epitomises its clashes, its frustration, and its opportunities.

Now on her third career as a writer, Sylvia explores what we have in common, while being honest about the challenges. The ultimate prize is an enhanced understanding that comes from 'walking in someone else's shoes' and the creativity that comes from crossing cultures and allowing cream to rise.

Food of Love is a poignant account of changes to our society from the mostly untold perspective of a white woman married to a man of colour. Recipes relishing the difference flow through the narrative. The recipes at the end of chapters reflect the diversity diet in our diet that rises with the diversity in the population.

With food comes love and with love comes hope.

Days later, The Door appears again. He doesn't know where it will take him. All he knows is that he's desperate to see his wife again.

This is a story about a husband's sorrow, and where it takes him.

This is a story about grief.

This is a story about what we do when faced with the loss of those we love.

Stepping between the fantastical and the real, this modern fairy tale crystalises hope and mourning into a reflection on life itself.

Richly illustrated with evocative artwork by Becky Gough.

Winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Biographies/Memoirs 2024 |

A Hungarian village on the Great Plain: a microcosm reflecting this country's history from early tribal invasion to Soviet subordination to European Community membership. Here, peasants, herders, party girls, former Nazis and lapsed communists share gossip as well as love stories; and unscrupulous leaders, totalitarian or freely elected, decide behaviour.

Like a fly in amber, this is a moment captured of a time and a place under peaceful upheaval. The old ways are vanishing. But what is being lost and what is remaining only slowly comes clear.

Celebrated photographer and author, Jill Culiner, spends years of her life there, chronicling these changes, learning the language and buying property. She is as committed as any. She weaves her own story with the story of that community and the history of living on the edge of the Great Hungarian Plain.

It's a raw story, honestly told, of a people crisscrossed with violence and hatreds, loves and escapes.

There remains one constant: hatred of the long-vanished rural Jew.

Final Approach charts the turbulent flightpath between a jetsetting father and a planespotting son.

The 1970s were the final gasp of the Golden Age of Flying. Mark Blackburn grew up amidst this fuel-guzzling splendour, with airports his playground of choice. He came to adulthood well-heeled and well-travelled. However, he had to contend with his multimillionaire father.

Luxury cars. Private planes. Racing stables. Foreign Mistresses.

Paranoia, bullying and power plays.

At the centre was the inescapable pull of the father.

Half memoir and half travelogue, wrapped in an ode to planespotting, this is one man’s journey to break free.

It’s the trip of a lifetime. Take your seat and buckle up for take-off.

Only one knows the truth. Only one can reveal it. Only one can save them all

Carrie, a Scottish rescue swimmer out of her depth in the High Arctic. Ross, the owner of an oil rig with a guilty conscience. Amaruq, an Inuvialuit oil-rig worker caught between two worlds.

Stranded on the Arctic ice with a starving polar bear and a half-dead stranger, Carrie’s left with nothing but deadly choices. Ross and Amaruq face their own crossroads. Lives hang on their decisions.

From the cruel Arctic to the corporate backrooms of shady Big Oil, White Road is an authentic and gripping eco-thriller of survival, battled out at the edge of everything.

Death hides in the detail. He hides in plain sight.

Pencil-pushing risk-analyst Luke Smith finds himself with a bounty on his head, the police, the public and a paid assassin on his tail. A file accidentally sent to him in a high-stakes Initial Public Offering (IPO) transaction is his only clue. Inside lies the secret his client will kill to keep hidden.

On the run, he has no choice but to make London's underbelly his refuge. With nothing but the clothes on his back and his own wits, he must solve the file's mystery before he becomes just another mortality statistic.

Inspired by true events, The Mortality Thief is a razor-sharp and authentic thriller that's ripped from the headlines.

What you spy is what you get. Or is it?

When a child trafficking network sets up a fake student exchange programme, families from around the world fall for it. Seventeen-year-old Kendall jets off on what she believes will be a Californian adventure. First stop: a luxurious hillside mansion for ‘Orientation Week’.

Blinded by the opulence and their own naivety, the youngsters cavort. Meanwhile hidden cameras transmit images to international buyers of them flirting, sleeping, bathing and playing.

Slowly, Kendall begins to suspect that something is wrong.

Escape is impossible. The house is sealed tight. They are also being managed from within. One of them is a traitor, a ‘Judas Goat’, subtly curating their thoughts, sabotaging their every bid for freedom. But who?

Kendall must persuade the other students that they are all prey. Together they must uncover the Judas Goat and find a way out, or they will be sold to the highest bidder. They only have a week.

Phil Osgood has it all. The wonderful wife, the fabulous kids, the lucrative career. He really only has one problem. He’s bored.

Quietly, Phil steps out of his lane and moonlights with a local detective. It’s a good compromise.

What starts as a diversion turns into a hunt for missing friends. When the hunt leads to bodies and Phil is implicated, the diversion gets personal – and deadly.

For the first time, Phil isn’t sure he’s going to win. And if he loses, he loses everything.

On a divided island, the dead tell stories. Nuray is a journalist. Some call her a troublemaker. Or a sleuth with a knack for finding the hidden graves of the missing. Haris has spent a lifetime avoiding the truth about his father’s disappearance. When Nuray reaches out for help on the case, he wants nothing to do with her. To him, she’s the enemy. Then forensic archaeologist Elena Wilkins, estranged from her family and seeking a new life, arrives on the island and starts digging for clues. A body is buried. A truth hidden. Someone will do anything to keep it that way.

Nuray is a journalist. Some call her a troublemaker. Or a sleuth with a knack for finding the hidden graves of the missing.

Haris has spent a lifetime avoiding the truth about his father’s disappearance. When Nuray reaches out for help on the case, he wants nothing to do with her. To him, she’s the enemy.

Then forensic archaeologist Elena Wilkins, estranged from her family and seeking a new life, arrives on the island and starts digging for clues.

A body is buried. A truth hidden. Someone will do anything to keep it that way.

Nuray, Haris, and Elena must navigate lies, betrayal and their own entangled pasts to uncover the secrets that lie beneath their feet.

From the award-winning novelist of The Spice Box Letters, comes a very modern mystery about bones from the past, and a heart-warming tale of generational trauma and healing.

On a divided island, the dead tell stories.