As an unashamed admirer of Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, and Roald Dahl’s quirky tales I have added a touch of my own black humour to this collection of short stories. My earliest childhood memories of blood curdling yarns on the radio, spoken by a man with a dark sepulchral voice, have left me with a lifetime’s passion for what were once known (long before my time I might add) as ‘Penny Dreadfuls’ or American Dime Novels: lurid tales of mysterious mayhem designed to deliciously shock and horrify our impressionable young minds. Science can explain away so many mysteries but it is often the creepy-unexpected that trips you up and opens the door to superstitious dread. However where my tales have a ghostly theme running through them they will often have a perfectly rational explanation. Occasionally they may even raise a smile or two. Modern lives are driven at such a fast pace with all the demands on our time and leisure that we often try and fit twenty-five hours into every working day, thus leaving very little space to absorb and do justice to the full length novel. This is why I believe the ‘Ten-Minute-Tale’ has a place to lift us out of the mundane. I hope you enjoy these offerings as you ‘cherry-pick’ your path along life’s crooked highway. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

With over thirty tales in this collection I agonised over which of them should be the cover story. However, the bleak solitude of those storm-tossed light-towers, often built off some wild and windswept, rocky coast, has always fascinated me, and so I chose the drama of the sea, with: ‘Wreckers.’ Even the most elevated families seem to have a black sheep who does not conform, and in ‘Twice Loved’ a wayward young son is to be disowned and banished forever. In the ‘Curse of Khartoum’ a despised mis-fit goes off at a tangent, with surprising results for everyone concerned. Things are rarely as black and white or as straightforward as they seem, and I hope these little tales will show that nothing in life should be taken for granted, or at face value. I leave you to decide if you think I am right. H.R. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

It is 1964, Leonard McFadden - a brash young cockney reporter for a national newspaper is dispatched by his editor to the Scottish Borders, to follow up on the strange case of Doctor James Parker. Along with a party of other journalists he attends a midnight vigil in a rain-sodden churchyard by the River Tweed. Returning to the graveside in the early morning sunlight, he staggers and leans on a tombstone for support and there stumbles onto a mystery that will change his life forever. Unbeknown to him – the storm clouds of fate are gathering; dark forces, already contriving to play havoc with his future. An enigmatic churchman asks his name and upon hearing it, remarks how Scotsmen from all over the world, often return to their place of birth, just as salmon return home, to spawn and die. Leonard humorously replies that he is not yet ready to spawn and die, but these and many more questions go tumbling through his brain as he ponders on life’s mysteries. Is he really who he thinks he is? Growing up in wartime Britain and with a surname like McFadden, is it possible he could have Scottish ancestry? Feeling a chill coming on, and inwardly reflecting that the Scottish Borders, for all its seductive beauty, may well be the death of him, the reporter is unaware that the cold hand of death may be lurking nearby… Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

WAR? DEATH AND DESTRUCTION? VIOLENCE, HATRED, INEXPRESSIBLE GRIEF? PEOPLES PITTED AGAINST EACH OTHER, TO THE DEATH? WHY ON EARTH SHOULD I WANT TO READ ABOUT IT? THERE’S ENOUGH IN THE MEDIA EVERY DAY, SURELY? YES: BUT THIS IS DIFFERENT. The stories in this Anthology aim to give a vivid insight, through a fascinating mixture of history, reminiscence and fiction, into life during WWII: for those at the front, those left behind, the young at school, the old in the twilight of their years, parents, lovers, spouses, families, colleagues; Britons, Germans, Irish, Kenyans, French, eastern Europeans and Americans (plus the odd ‘undesirable alien’!). These pages see householders struggling to maintain a semblance of normality; young men reluctant to volunteer; soldiers determined to win; acts of generosity, acts of cowardice. In these pages, there is violence – impossible to avoid in an Anthology dedicated to the memory of war – but there is also humour and romance, suspense and emotion, heroism and daring. Even the paranormal puts in an appearance (as one might say). The action is set variously in France, Britain, Eire, Kenya, Russia, Poland ... You are guaranteed hours of stimulation, enjoyment and fruitful relaxation with a book devoted to one of the defining events of our times. STARE INTO THE PAST WITH THE EYES OF THOSE GRIPPED BY ITS DRAMA. All the stories have been especially written for this Anthology by writers experienced in their field. Pneuma Springs is proud to present it to commemorate seventy years after the end of hostilities. Contributors: Karl Brockmann, Annie Coyle Martin, Julius Falconer, Peter Good, Neal James Andrew Malloy, Steve Morris, Neil Morton, Ron Ooms, Chris Pownall, Derek Rosser, Avril Saunders, Derek Smith, Louise Wilkinson Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

Murder comes in all shapes and sizes. It also comes at inconvenient times. Christmas, for example. This anthology has all the classic motives: blackmail, revenge, lust, greed, anger… Murder by meat-hook, piano-wire, scarf, knife, hammer, golf-club, bullet, syringe … It’s all here, at your elbow. And there’s more! Humour, intrigue, suspense…

Ruthlessly manipulated for most of his adult life by a cunning enemy posing as his friend, half drowned and enslaved in the Congo and hoodwinked in New York, Doctor James Parker slides into a deep pit of depression. Utterly consumed by misery and grief with his best friend and his fiancé missing, his family decimated by the death of his father and his beloved sister, he is past listening to reason and believes he has every reason to kill his generous benefactor, the man he blames for all his misfortunes. But the gallows await! ~~~~~After a cruel start in life, abandoned outside an orphanage as a baby, Billy Turpin grows up to become big, strong and handsome, a natural and highly successful entrepreneur running several companies. Greedy councillors, gullible men and women are willingly hypnotized by his wealth, his easy confidence and charismatic charm. But one person suspects he is also a psychopathic killer with a very personal and mysterious grudge against him, his family and friends.Two people whose paths were doomed to cross even before they were born, with the most tragic consequences imaginable for all concerned.

The Shadow Kingdom and other weird tales Robert Ervin Howard was an American pulp writer and is especially noted for his memorable depictions of ""a sombre universe of swashbuckling adventure and darkling horror."" He is well known for having created the character Conan the Barbarian. Meet Solomon Kane, Kull of Atlantis, Bran Mak Morn, Black Vulmea, James Allison and others in Howards weird tales of fantasy and horror. In these classics Howard spins tales of unrelenting terror, the legacy of one of the world's great masters of the macabre.