Nine fantasy tales to intrigue:~ Witness the epic in The Wind has a Beard.~ Journey with heart in Ash.~ Resist the indomitable in The Causeway of the Giants.~ Stamp out injustice in The Castle of the Clouds.~ Flirt with power in The Glory Crown.~ Traverse the heretical in Gods Sky.~ Venture against the vast in Secrets of the Tower.~ Court the cursed in October ...

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?The theme ...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

Twenty-four stories celebrating the birth and teachings of Jesus Christ—the true gift of Christmas. One for each day from December 1 to Christmas Eve.

Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith was born in Birkenhead, Merseyside in England on the 7th August 1902 into a privileged family steeped in titles and politics.Part of her education was at Miss Douglas's school at Queen's Gate. Here she met and befriended several other young women that the British tabloid press would later call the ‘Bright Young Things’, a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.Smith's paternal great-grandmother, was said to have been a...

Let’s be clear. We are all equal under the law. However, even in these more modern times that is not an absolute and still remains a distant ambition for many.In the days when Britain ruled the waves and bestrode the world as its policeman and plunderer in chief it also subjugated half of its own people to second class status. Women were chattel and property. There were some exceptions based on wealth and birthright but for the overwhelming majority your lot was to fall in with the...