Not All Flowers Face the Sun

By Mark Zanzibar Boyde

A fatal car crash in the Scottish Highlands leaves ex-soldier Sean Jameson haunted by visions of his dead wife and suffering nightmares from an abusive childhood. Deciding he cannot go on, but knowing Heaven does not accept suicides, he calls on Death to take him. In a bizarre twist of fate, after finding an old, leather-bound journal in an antique desk, he is given that chance. From Ben Nevis to the Himalayas, Spain’s Camino de Santiago to Mont Blanc, Europe’s “killer mountain”, Sean must fight to live while hoping to die in a way God accepts.

After six failed IVF treatments, artist and sculptor Claudia Montgomery is drawn to the lighthouse near her childhood home on Massachusetts rugged coastline. Mourning her failing marriage and the child she has never had but desperately wants, she begs the Universe for help. A chance meeting with lighthouse owner, Hannah Thomas, sets Claudia on a journey across Europe, carrying a box of ashes to the Costa Del Morte, Spain’s “Coast of Dead”. But Death and the Universe have their own plans.

Two lives, one seeking darkness, the other light. Two journeys of self-discovery. An explosive climax on the summit of Mont Blanc. An ending no one could have foreseen.

A tale of love, loss, and the Universe.`

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A Pact For Life

By Grant Budge

Since God rested on the seventh day, good and evil have fought. In fact, many religions believe it was on the seventh day that God created evil to add balance to his creation. Whatever its origins, the fight continues, though the rules of engagement have changed.

Shifton is a small, happy, and safe North American town. However, this quiet town has a hidden past. A secret history of depravity, that has laid dormant for sixty years. A spiritual dark side that is about to be released, through a new vessel.

John Garret is a young boy battling through adolescence, who becomes the ungrateful subject of the school bully. During an instance of tortuous persecution, he finds himself abandoned by God, and breaks with his faith, pledging his life to a darker force, in return for power and glory. Unfortunately, through his impetuosity, he fails to pay enough attention to the warnings. What evil gives, it wants back double!

Over time Garret begins to neglect his new master, taking more than giving. And when his past eventually catches up with him, he is married to his childhood sweetheart and has a successful career. But this perfect world is about to come crumbling down, as a new colleague with a hidden agenda arrives on the scene.

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AOK: Allen of Kea

By James Hawkins Woodward

AOK is pure fiction, politically incorrect, vulgar, blasphemous, humorous, sad and contains some certain life truths. It is a testament for older underachievers and focuses on the main character, Allen, and his intent at 50 to reinvent himself on a beautiful island in the Greek Aegean Seas. It combines poetry written by the dyspeptic poet Anthony, the ex-public school eccentric, with factual history, archaeology, and Essex humour courtesy of Grace.

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