In this sequel to Wolf Wood (Part One), the Perrys and Gascoignes become dangerously involved in the civil war between the Houses of Lancaster and York. The book follows historical events. The Perrys and Gascoignes are fictitious. Most other characters are real.
FREE DOWNLOAD until 25 April Wolf Wood (Part Two): The Lone Wolf 163 pages, 1.03MB.
THE DANGEROUS YEARS: In 1436 a dispute arose between the people of Sherborne and their abbot over the ownership of a baptismal font. Before it was settled, the abbey was burnt down and a bishop murdered. Some saw the hand of evil at work and blamed a newcomer to the town, accusing her of being a witch. Others saw her as a saint. Wolf Wood is set in the turbulent years of the late middle ages. The old feudal aristocracy is losing control, a new middle class is flexing its muscles, the authority of the church is being questioned, law and order have broken down and England is facing defeat in France. Wolf Wood is a work of fiction based on actual events.
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TRUE TALES AND TRAVEL ADVICE for independent travellers to Japan. Download a free copy and discover what Japan has to offer: accommodation, transport, hiking, touring, modern cities, ancient past, temples, monasteries, fantastic scenery, great food and lots more. Author, Mike Dixon, has been a frequent visitor to Japan over the past twenty years, speaks Japanese (badly) and has lots of Japanese friends. MIKE’S JAPAN has 51 pages and is illustrated with lots of pics.
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Mike’s Japan by Mike Dixon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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TRUE TALES AND TRAVEL ADVICE for independent travellers to China. Download a free copy and discover what China has to offer: accommodation, transport, visas, modern cities, ancient past, ethnic minorities, temples, monasteries, fantastic scenery, great food and lots more. Author, Mike Dixon, has been a frequent visitor to China over the past twenty years, on climbing expeditions and as a general traveller. MIKE’S CHINA has 56 pages and is illustrated with lots of pics.
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Mike’s China by Mike Dixon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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TRUE TALES AND TRAVEL ADVICE for visitors to Australia. Download a free copy and discover what Australia has to offer: surfing, diving, hiking, rainforest, aboriginal, outback, strange animals, amazing plants, fantastic birds and lots more. Author, Mike Dixon, is widely travelled and has lived in Australia for over forty years. He built one of Australia’s first backpacker hostels. MIKE’S AUSTRALIA has 83 pages and is illustrated with lots of pics.
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Mike’s Australia by Mike Dixon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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ADVICE FOR THOSE ENTERING THE TOURISM INDUSTRY. Author, Mike Dixon, started his working life as an astrophysicist, became a government officer, moved to public relations and entered the tourism industry via scuba diving. He made more money out of tourism than any of his other ventures but it wasn’t easy. In this free ebook he gives advice on how to make the SEA CHANGE from a salaried job to tourism.
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Sea Change by Mike Dixon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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Tru
e backpacker tales by a former backpacker hostel owner.
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Free Beer and Sex by Mike Dixon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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THE SINS OF THE FATHERS ARE HANDED DOWN FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION. Yuki Mori had heard the old saying but its full meaning only became clear when she left Japan and went to Australia in search of her sister who had entered a strange hippy commune. Yuki thought her sister was being exploited for sex. The truth was even more frightening but it was not all bad news. Yuki found friends in unexpected places and they helped rescue her sister from the frightening world she had entered. To do so, they had to unravel the strange circumstances of Yuki’s birth. In the process, her life was changed for forever.
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In the realm beyond the seventh circle a princess prays to the mother goddess for a man to fight her enemies. She asks for a man skilled in the arts of war and says she wants a man who will excite passions and put the plans of her enemies to nought. By chance, a suitable candidate is conducting bizarre experiments beside a holy spring in the realm beyond the sixth circle – our realm. He arrives in the princess’ camp and her prayers seem to have been answered – but not as she imagined. Genre: fantasy, romance, humour.
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SOME THINGS ARE BEST left unopened – particularly when they contain dark secrets. David Paget should have thought of that when he agreed to collect a suitcase
from Hong Kong and take it to Australia. The contents look too old to be threatening. But appearances can be deceptive. Like a genie from a bottle the past rushes in. Events develop with alarming speed and David is propelled on a mad flight through the vastness of
Australia, pursued by hired killers. His friends mount a rescue operation. To succeed, they must delve into the past and uncover the reason for David’s plight.
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No one can go to the past but lots of people had been there. My grandmother was one and she often talked about it. She lived in the English fens when she was a girl and there was a photograph of her old house on her parlour wall. A canal ran beside it. Grandma said the canal was dug by soldiers from the war against Napoleon and some wore their old uniforms. She knew because her grandfather told her. He used to speak to the men when he was a boy.
Grandma was sixty when I was five so she could look back twelve of my lifetimes. That seemed a very long time but the number has since shrunk to less than one and grandma’s childhood no longer seems so far away. Nor does her grandfather’s and that raises a conundrum: the older you get the nearer the past seems to come.
I studied science at university and graduated with a degree in astrophysics. I left Britain for Australia and worked for a while as a research astronomer. My special interest was the origin and evolution of our Milky Way Galaxy. I was a bit of a pioneer and coined the term astro-archaeology to describe what I was doing. In brief, the old stars of our galaxy retain a memory of how they were formed and this shows up in their motions and chemical compositions. By studying these you can look back to the time when the Milky Way was formed.
The past determines the present. That simple rule applies to colossal systems like galaxies and to small assemblages like human populations. It also applied to me. My fascination for the heavens led me into a profession where there were few jobs. That presented problems since I had a family to support. I left astronomy and began a wandering life. For a while, I worked in Canberra’s Parliament House. I left for a job in public relations, became a journalist, joined the diving industry and built a backpacker resort.
I changed jobs but never lost my interest in history. I read a lot and came to the conclusion that much is missing from the historical record because day-to-day events are rarely recorded. My great-great grandfather spoke to men who fought against Napoleon but didn’t write down what they said. In modern jargon, he didn’t engage in oral history. I worked on a number of oral history projects and one was undertaken to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea. It led to my novel Curtin Express.
Almost every army has them and they are usually called camp followers. The ladies of the night perform a vital function that is often overlooked in history books, which tells you a lot about the people who write the books. There’s no shortage of information as I found when I participated in an oral history project to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea.
Oral history is what you learn by talking to old people about what they did when they were young. It is important because it records things that don’t get written down when they happen – sometimes for good reasons.
The Battle of the Coral Sea was fought in 1942 from bases in northern Australia. Tens of thousands of American troops flooded into the region and found themselves short of female company. To solve that problem, Prime Minister Curtin authorised a train to leave southern cities and travel north. Any female person could travel free of charge. The train became know as the Curtin Express and the ladies were called Curtin girls. I interviewed some and was told about others. One was a formidable woman who used the proceeds of her wartime endeavours to found a business empire.
That was explosive stuff … but what to do with it? Most was told in confidence and a lot was about people who had carved out highly respected places for themselves in the postwar years. The academics who recruited me to their oral history team didn’t want any part in it.
I put my notes to one side but couldn’t stop thinking about the ladies. Their story had to be told even if it had to be cast as a work of fiction. The plot for Curtin Express developed in that way. The novel is set in the recent past but its roots go back to the 1940s. Older characters were inspired by people I heard about in my investigations but are fictitious.
Twenty-year-old David agrees to collect a suitcase from Hong Kong and take it to Australia. The request seems innocent but the case contains dark secrets and David’s life is thrown into turmoil when he gets to Canberra. Like an evil genie escaping from a bottle, the past rushes in and he is propelled on a mad flight, through the vastness of Australia, pursued my hired killers. His friends mount a rescue operation. To succeed, they must delve into the past and uncover the reason for David’s plight. Their inquiries follow the path I took in my investigations.
Curtin Express is available on Amazon as an ebook with pictures. I’ve taken advantage of new technologies and have included over 130 colour photographs in the text. Readers can see the action unfold – not just read about it.
