Exoddy

The Follower

The Follower started life as a book written for my son. Much later, I revised and published the book. It is an adventure and a journey across a troubled land. Maybe everyone has a follower… be they a burdenm a guilt, a conscience, a judge and sometimes they become a part of you.

The Follower is a tale full of mystery in a land at once familiar and unsettling. Toby longs to escape the quiet boredom of his life. He soon finds himself far away from his small island home and escaping from the Big City thugs into ever greater danger. He joins forces with Chrissy and together they find themselves embroiled in an adventure that crosses the boundaries of time, while always behind them, the Follower draws ever closer and the extraordinary events of those times are revealed.

Moses Trod

Moses Trod is book built around music and hills, the lake district fells and South Downs in particular. The title comes from the ancient packhorse track that carried Honister slate across the high Wasdale fells to the coast for transport by ship. The story begins during World War II with the birth of Mark Hunter and follows his life and many other characters over the following fifty years.

Windswept hills, hot city streets, money, madness and mystery all pervade the story of musician and businessman Mark Hunter. A host of characters populate the scene in a persuasive tapestry of English life where love, music and greed collide with explosive consequences in this lively novel.

Beneath these events, Moses the tramp wanders the streets and hills weaving together the threads of the unfolding drama that brings together the art of beauty, truth, lies, greed and humility in a rich picture of a changing society searching for an idyll that proves to be as ellusive as it is compelling.

‘It was the hills that made him…’

Cliffington

Cliffington is a large novel in a form that may have been called a saga in the 19th century. Set among the wild, atmospheric hills and coasts of north-eastern England, where nature holds sway as much as any woman or man, Cliffington looks like a rural idyll, but is not immune to the events of the world. A story of trial and obsession, of love and hope, Cliffington reveals the strengths and frailties of the people who live there and tests their community to the edge of failure. It is a world apart and yet still torn by the trauma, distress and destruction of wars in distant lands, while always close at hand the sea rolls on relentless.

Cliffington is an epic novel, a romance, a mystery, a tradegy and a saga that leads you through a noble landscape. It is a story that builds into a glorious crescendo with man pitched against his greatest enemy: himself. Nature is ever present and revealed as the real power surrounding us all.

‘There is a moment on the turn of the tide when the world stands still…’

The Legends of the Ages

The Legends of the Ages is a fairy tale for adults. Yes, it does have both a beautiful princess and a dragon, but it also features the trials of war and famine across a stricken land.

The Legends of the Ages is a faerie tale in the old tradition that tells a story that resonates today: of greed, of hunger, of war, of hope and love.

‘Dreams and nightmares are found of the same dust; an idyll becomes an avalanche; the stream becomes a flood; the lovers fall to war.’

When grief and suffering are inflicted on a struggling people by their arrogant leaders, ignorant and disdainful of the needs of those around them, it is no surprise that a small group of revolutionaries vow to bring down those in power.

‘Revolutions… tear apart society, families, individuals, lovers, colleagues, friends and leave only tears to soak into the bloodstaines muddy soil.’

Bella returns to this land where revolution and war are close at hand and finds an uneasy quiet. She is driven to help the innocent citizens caught up in the turmoil and seeks to put right the wrongs with all her energy and belief, only to encounter the full horror of tradegy and disaster…

‘The men do not so often come here; I think they just wander off into the woods and find a place to lie down and die. Sometimes we find a body. They have no dignity left, you see. They can’t bear to see the little ones. It breaks their hearts. The women… the women have no hearts left to break.’