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'SEE ME FOR WHO I AM'
BY GRAHAM CULTON
Autobiography
My name is Graham Robert Culton. I am a 38-year-old Armed Forces Veteran of ten and a half years service to Queen and Country. I served with Mortar Platoon of 2nd Battalion – 51st Highland Volunteers in Dingwall (in the Highlands) for a year prior to giving my Oath of Allegiance to Queen and Country and proudly joining the 1st Battalion – Queen’s Own Highlanders (the ‘Blue Maff’) Caber Feigh Gu Braith in 1993
'THE SELF DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL'
BY HANNAH MURRAY
Self Development
This journal is a support resource, that will aid your through the start of your self development journey.
Self reflection is the biggest element i positive self discovery.
Follow a simple 3 step process which will help you navigate and unpick a better version of yourself.
The guided exercises, prompt and behavioural tackers are tools which have been designed and developed
for the purpose of this journal.
This journal will support you to begin your self development with confidence and consistency.
'BECOMING BROTHERS'
BY DAVE FLINT
Fiction
The Second World War and 1940's Portsmouth is experiencing its fair share of bombing raids. Three young teenage boys living in the area with their families, take each day as it comes when suddenly a stranger appears amongst them.
Another teenage boy their age, different, but not that different. With the new boy living in sordid conditions and fighting his corner at home, he discovers he has friends, and eventually, his life turns a corner. A story of cruelty and kindness that brings people together.
THE GIRL FROM POMPEY
'DISCOVERING THE KEY TO HAPPINESS AND FULFILLMENT'
BY BRYONY BEST
Autobiography
Bryony Best was born and raised in Portsmouth. As an ex-drug addict and alcoholic, she has overcome many life challenges, including near death. Bryony is a girl on a mission; she has a burning question inside of her – What is happiness and fulfilment? Who has it, and how can she get it? Follow Bryony on her journey as she searches for answers, seeking them from the people who cross her path. As her quest unfolds, will she find the answers? Bryony was once in a very dark place. She has overcome an alcoholic father, addiction, attempts by others to take her life, and along the way she is desperately trying to find her way back to herself. Family fences need mending, and so does her life.
But the real question is - Are you happy and fulfilled?
THE GIRL FROM POMPEY
'CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEAD?'
BY BRYONY BEST
Autobiography
In this gripping, page-turning prequel to The Girl from Pompey – Discovering the Key to Happiness and Fulfilment, travel back in time to 1984 to discover how Bryony’s life began. Bryony always knew she was different. With the ability to see and speak with the dead, it was only a matter of time before her path would be revealed. Discover the events that led to Bryony’s addiction to both drugs and alcohol. Bryony holds nothing back as she reveals the disturbing truth behind how she won her fight against herself and her demons. Bryony battled her way through alcoholism only to find that recovery was a bumpy and never-ending road. With mental health issues and being able to see the dead, is Bryony really gifted with the ability to speak with spirits, or does she need professional help? After a traumatic childhood and a rebellious teen life, did Bryony manage to escape near death multiple times to find any purpose or answers? Will Bryony find her way back to her true path or be able to make peace with her demons?
THE HEALING JOURNEY
'HEALING THE BODY, MIND AND SOUL'
BY BRYONY BEST
Autobiography
Bryony Best has faced and overcome more life challenges than any human-being should ever have to on this earth plane.
In this spiritual and honest book learn and discover how Bryony has fought and battled her way to heal her mind, body and spirit.
Bryony has been swept off of her feet by trauma, mental illness, addictions, and attempts by others to take her life.
How has Bryony overcome these challenges and not only survived but succeeded where most others have failed? Each chapter focuses on a specific medical alignment, sharing Bryony’s unique approach to cope with long-term medical conditions, alongside how to heal from emotional and traumatic experiences. Humans have a great power within them, and by accessing our higher thinking we can work energetically in harmony with the universe. Read on to discover how Bryony’s spiritual and energetic awareness has saved her and managed to pull her through her darkest hours.
THE GIRL FROM POMPEY
'BLOODSHED IN THE HAMPSHIRE CABIN'
BY BRYONY BEST
Autobiography
Bryony has already experienced a life of trauma and addiction, surviving a dark past after battling her demons through mental illness. Will Bryony be able to overcome her next psychological challenged in life, while being surrounded by stalkers and friends who harbour dark secrets? Prepare for suspense, shock and thrills as Bryony shares another segment of her twisted past. A gripping and engrossing story of love and betrayal, revealing the chilling truth of a complex story between a group of ordinary friends.
A weekend away in a cabin with six of her closest friends, what could possibly go wrong?
GOD'S GIFT
BY MATT O'DONOVAN
Fiction
You hear the voice of God. It tells you truths you couldn't possibly know. Then it tells you to kill. You've gone crazy...right? Detective Inspector Mackerel lands a case that puts him on the trail of a disturbed vicar - who believes they are being instructed by God to return people to Heaven. Meanwhile, Julie McBride - a deceased middle-aged woman-of-faith - navigates a surreal and chaotic afterlife where she begins to grow more powerful and dangerous then its barbaric inhabitants. Matt O'Donovan's dark, gory and savagely comic crime thriller imagines a world where the lines between madness and faith are blurred, where policing by-the-book could be in direct conflict with the will of God and where an amoral Heaven is full of violent raving lunatics.
A TRIPTYCH OF BIRDS AND A FEW LOOSE FEATHERS
BY PRATIBHA CASTLE
Poetry
'In Pratibha Castle's sensual, sacramental debut pamphlet, words hum like insects in high summer, tempt the tongue like the last sweet smear of cake batter, and fly like feathers after a lifelong mother-daughter catfight. From lonely childhood Wimpy Bars to lecherous confessionals, Portobello Market in the Swinging Sixties to a garrulous Friday night down the pub in Kells, remote family homes to mourning walks in the South Downs, all the vivid spirit and pain of an Anglo-Irish girlhood coming-of-age is resurrected in these pages and released like petals on the wind. Castle's poems have a heady perfume and courageous way with a secret reminiscent of Edna O'Brien and Medbh McGuckian - and a subtle incantatory magic all their own.'
MINISKIRTS IN THE WASTE LAND
BY PRATIBHA CASTLE
Poetry
Miniskirts in The Waste Land, set in Notting Hill and India, is an elegy for the late 60s/early 70s. In flamboyant contrast to the drab reality of post WW2 Britain, the air in these years of emerging counterculture, the era of the pill, throbbed with the scents and sounds of youth, the blazing hues of psychedelia. These poems portray a young woman's search for self-knowledge, and love. But the heady freedom of the sexual revolution masks a darker side: a fear of loneliness, the realities of the Vietnam war. Along the way, she discovers the joys and disappointments of young love, explores the 'queendom' of motherhood, has a taste of her inner power till, in the end, the 'jangled' voices from her past 'fade' along with 'voices of the jungle'. Peace, however transient, descends upon her.
MUTE
BY
Fiction
If Wes is such a quiet man - mute from birth, in fact - why does someone try to murder him one Friday night in the office toilet? Shaken, and dismissed by the police for reasons he doesn't understand, he goes on the run. But Keiran, his would-be killer and member of a survivalist cult, is not giving up, and tries to get to Wes through his wife, Alex. Though kept apart, Wes and Alex must find out what has happened and why. Not an easy task when the real reason is unknown even to Keiran himself. Mute is a darkly comic thriller in the spirit of Graham Greene and the Coen brothers.
COAST OF TEETH
'TRAVELS TO ENGLISH SEASIDE TOWNS
IN AN AGE OF ANXIETY'
BY TOM SYKES AND LOUIS NETTER
Non-Fiction
'The English seaside has long been seductive. For 200 years, punters have sought out its quirky thrills from bingo to Wurlitzer organ dances, glamorous granny parades to child-jockeyed donkey races, lewdly shaped rock candy to harrowingly bad karaoke. But recently, many seaside towns have been pummelled by poverty, unemployment, underinvestment, addiction, Brexit, Covid-19 and the climate emergency. Writer Tom Sykes and illustrator Louis Netter take you on a Gonzo tour of 21 English coastal communities in an age of anxiety and absurdity. Their encounters are comical, sad, weird and beguiling – sometimes all at once. A post-lockdown beach party turns violent in Bournemouth. The Hampshire shores pile up with plastic waste and sewage dumped by a water company. St Osyth and Jaywick's trailer parks and makeshift homes have come to resemble a Global Southern shanty town. Covid disinformation is daubed on walls and benches across the Dorset coast. A pub in Scarborough celebrates Ulster paramilitarism. Portsmouthians come to terms with the imperial past. A Blackpudlian musician confesses an intimate connection to the serial killer Harold Shipman. But there's good news too. Combers and mudlarkers are cleaning our beaches. Art projects are drawing attention to coastal erosion and other ecological menaces. In an increasingly uniform England of red-brick estates and retail parks, seaside towns might just be our last outposts of eccentricity and individuality.
A VERY IMPORTANT TEAPOT
BY STEVE SHEPPARD
Fiction
Praised by comedienne Helen Lederer, founder of Comedy Women in Print Prize, who called it “A curiously magical thriller with suburban subterfuge and sparkle.”
A Very Important Teapot is a comedy thriller revolving around the hunt for a lost cache of Nazi diamonds in Australia.
Dawson’s life is going nowhere. Out of work and nearly out of money, he is forlornly pursuing the love of Rachel Whyte. But Rachel is engaged to Pat Bootle, an apparently successful local solicitor who has appeared from nowhere.
Then, out of the blue, Dawson receives a job offer from his best friend, Alan Flannery, which involves him jumping on a plane to Australia to "await further instructions". But instructions about what?
This is the start of a frantic chase around south eastern Australia with half the local underworld, the police and the intelligence agencies of three countries trying to catch up with Dawson.
What is Flannery’s game?
Why has Pat Bootle turned up in Australia?
Who is the beautiful but mysterious Lucy Smith?
What is the teapot’s secret?
What has folk music got to do with anything?
And how do guns actually work?
Dawson’s life will never be the same again.
BORED TO DEATH IN THE BALTICS
BY STEVE SHEPPARD
Fiction
Bored to Death in the Baltics is a comedy thriller, a sequel to A Very Important Teapot, set four months later. Saul Dawson and Lucy Smith, still working for a minor department of MI6, get caught up in the apparent assassination of a foreign scientist working on a top secret project. Meanwhile, a traitor is on the loose within the secret service.
It's murder, mayhem and mirth. Full of twists, puns and action, it's so brilliantly constructed that only the comedic genius of Steve Sheppard could have written it.
When a bomb explodes in front of Dawson on a sunny June morning, he is lucky to escape with his life, certainly luckier than the man he is following.
But finding himself a few hours later in the bilges of a ship heading for the eastern Baltic is less fortunate as that is not how he'd planned to spend his weekend.
Who is the man assassinated by the bomb?
Who has kidnapped Dawson, and will Lucy Smith find him in time?
What is happening deep underground in rural Estonia and leafy Surrey?
Is there a double agent within MI6?
Who are the tantalising Sesks twins really working for?
Can Dawson and Lucy distinguish Wright from Rong?
And can Dawson avoid being bored to death?
TUG OF LOVE: A STORY OF LIFE, LOVE AND LOSS
BY JO AUSTIN
Autobiography
Tug of Love is one mother's story, through the rollercoaster of relationships and emotions that has shaped the very person she has become.
The author invites you to journey alongside her, from her childhood as a mischievous but frighteningly anxious child, to a young adult filled with so much love but consumed by self-doubt, to a strong woman and mother.
Her journey has not been easy. There were many twists and turns, including mental health illness and chronic physical illness. A child with special needs was her blessing but she fought many battles to secure the best for him and his sisters.
WALKING WITH LOVE AND AUTISM
BY JO AUSTIN
Autobiography
Robert was a very restless baby and only really responsive to the stimulus of touch. A hearing check showed severe impairment but it was hoped that, after operations to remove his tonsils and adenoids and to drain his ears, his hearing would improve and so would his development. Once he began playschool, however, it was clear to the teachers and to his mum, Jo, that Robert was struggling, but it was to be some time before a diagnosis was reached: Robert had moderate learning difficulties, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and autism. During these difficult years, as Robert attended various specialist and mainstream schools, Jo wrote about her experiences caring for Robert and trying to maintain a normal family life with her husband Mike, and their other children, Jennifer and Catherine. While there were many low moments and periods of great frustration, Robert's story is ultimately hopeful and inspiring.
DANDY THE HIGHWAY LION
BY STEPHANIE SORRELL
Children's Book
'This is a story filled with charm ... I read this in one sitting, finding myself transported back in time and all the while feeling this would make for a brilliant film!' LOUISE NETTLETON, BLOGGER
Ben and Hattie meet a new friend in the park. Mr Dandy Paws is not just any big cat, he's a highway lion who robs from the rich to give to poor animals in need. His next daring rescue is a breakout from the city zoo.
But if they help him, Ben and Hattie could get into more trouble than they bargained for.
Set in an off-the-wall 1920s London complete with talking animals!
Strong animal welfare and ecological themes with a funny and fantastical twist
Inside illustrations with a classic nostalgic feel by Roxana de Rond
GREEN PIGS AND ME
BY ANNA MOULD
Autobiography
What would you say to your younger self if you had the opportunity? What would you want them to know?
Anna had spent two decades criticising herself and decisions she had made, punishing her body; trying to be "enough" for everybody and still feeling "less than". In her early forties, she experienced a shift in perspective and was able to reflect on past experiences with older, wiser eyes. Green Pigs and Me is a collection of letters to Anna's younger self, written during the pandemic lockdown. She looks back at key events in her lifetime with kindness and gratitude, giving her younger self the hope and guidance that she needed fifteen years ago. Her wish is that others will also find hope, and maybe reach out to their own younger self to explore their past, to meet themselves again with compassion and understanding, and to move forward from what may be keeping them stuck.
WHEN GREEN PIGS FLY
BY ANNA MOULD
Autobiography
“I believe that every one of us is born with wings.”
So what does it feel like to truly fly?
Following on from the success of her debut book, “Green Pigs & Me”, Anna now reflects on how far she has come despite the obstacles of her past. Written over the course of 2021, we follow her flight path and the turbulence she encounters along the way. There are moments of celebration and riding the thermals, but also low points where she feels almost grounded.
This book comprises a series of essays, musings and journal-style entries, and will encourage you to consider your own flight path, reflect on how far you’ve come and contemplate how you can create your journey ahead.
“Are your wings tethered? Where does your heart want to fly to? Are you ready to stretch those wings?”
PLENTY MORE FISH
BY DAWN MARTIN
Fiction
When Pete leaves Chloe for another woman, she is forced to raise their family alone. When an impromptu internet pop up leads her to a dating site, she naively believes she has found the perfect way of finding love again. After meeting a string of unlikely suitors, she finally meets Mel, but unbeknown to her, Mel is fighting his own demons, and things are about to get a lot more complicated.
Plenty More Fish pushes the boundaries as it follows Chloe on a dark and dangerous journey that sees her wade her way through a sea of sociopaths in her desperate quest to find her soulmate. As she ventures into deeper waters, friends and colleagues become increasingly concerned for her safety, but will she listen to them before it's too late?
Content advisory
This book contains content which may be sensitive to some readers. References to stalking, sexual assault and addiction are made throughout.
MISSING WORDS (FAIRLIGHT MODERNS)
BY LOREE WESTRON
Fiction
Jenny’s life is at a crossroads. Since the sudden death of her youngest daughter, her marriage has grown silent; and now, on the eve of her 40th birthday, her one remaining child has also begun pushing her away. At the Royal Mail sorting office where she works, her position is equally precarious. Her boss has made it clear he wants her out. Undermined at home and at work, Jenny longs for the life that might have been. So, when a postcard with an urgent message and an incomplete address on the Isle of Wight lands on her sorting table, she does the unthinkable – she slips it up her sleeve and sets off on her bicycle to deliver it herself. If she can’t save her own faltering relationships, perhaps she can help someone else save theirs. Set in Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight during the turbulent summer of 1984, Missing Words captures Thatcher’s Britain at a moment of national unrest and social change. Loree Westron’s debut novel is an ultimately uplifting story about love, loss, the importance of family and finding redemption.
MASALA & OTHER MIXES:
'A JOURNEY INTO THE CULTURAL MELTING POT OF INDIA AND NEPAL'
BY ANDY HANLON
Travelogue
Masala & Other Mixes is an often hilarious account of an epic, 5,500-mile journey through India and Nepal. This travelogue is essential reading for anyone wishing to fully understand India or Nepal in the 21st century, covering as it does a wealth of subjects, ranging from agriculture to architecture, commerce to cuisine, music to movies and politics to prison. Importantly, the book examines the numerous connections between the region's cultures, religions, ethnic groups, communities and societies.
The story also has many dramatic and sometimes perilous moments. The author witnesses off-duty soldiers beating up innocent civilians on a train to Delhi, hears bullets whistling over the picturesque Dal Lake in Kashmir and is swept up in a full-scale military exercise in the Shalimar Gardens. Equally harrowing, from a boat he sees up close the body of a child floating in the River Ganges. In Nepal, a night time walk through the jungle is enlivened by the danger of charging rhinos and an encounter with an elephant. Even a goat threatens genital injury on one crowded Nepalese bus!