A Ha'porth of God Help

A story of conflicting love, momentous sea battles and a man’s passion to fulfil his destiny. 

The closing months of the year were troubled ones in the Europe of 1938. Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Chancellor, was determined to extend Germany’s boundaries despite the conciliatory diplomacy of both Britain and France. 

Kriegsmarine officer, Kapitan zur See Johan Kamenz, the newly appointed captain of the pocket battleship Weisbaden, is more excited however at the prospect of commanding such a powerful warship than with the manoeuvrings of his political masters. He does not believe that either Hitler or Chamberlain want a repeat of the disastrous war of 1914-18.

Before taking up his new appointment he is sent to visit the German Embassy in London, there to learn of Royal Navy warship deployments. His ambitious wife, Marie Therese, is not persuaded to accompany him on his visit, preferring instead to accept an invitation to stay at Karinhall, the hunting lodge of Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering, widower of her school friend Karin.

At a London Embassy reception Johan Kamenz meets Captain Forbes-Houghton, captain of the battleship HMS Ramillies, someone he is destined to meet again. He also meets the captain’s daughter, to whom he is attracted, an attraction that is to have consequences for both of them over the months to come, when Johan realises war leaves little room for sentiment.

War is finally declared, and Kapitan zur See Kamenz must deploy Weisbaden into battle against their new enemy, the British Royal Navy. The ensuing sea fights and cat and mouse chases become a true test of his mettle and of those who serve under him; their guns are set against overwhelming odds and this is a world where only the most cunning can survive. 

ISBN: 9781852001278 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 292pp

Attempts to solve the mystery surrounding the loss of his destroyer HMS Fortune, along with the complete Royal Navy convoy HXL 267, in September 1943, lead Commander Bob Garner into even more dangerous waters than those of the North Atlantic.

Although exonerated of blame, he is dismayed that his superiors do not accept his report that the convoy was attacked by an exceptionally fast submarine. There also seems to be an unwarranted secrecy about the purpose of the defeated convoy. 

Traumatised by the loss of the Fortune and the lack of reaction by his superiors, he finds his personal life in turmoil and wife Melissa unable to cope with his state of mind; his only solace in the form of Mary Forbes, a sympathetic Wren officer.

Meanwhile the captured Frigatten Kapitan Hinterberger seems to know about the sinking of the British convoy, but teases Bob Garner, holding back on any real information.

As the truth unfolds regarding the loss of convoy HXL 267, the war service of German Kapitan Hinterberger, the secret of the high speed submarines and the purpose of ‘Operation Cloudburst’, Commander Bob Garner shares his place on the stage of history with figures such as General Eisenhower, Adolf Hitler and Gross Admiral Doenitz, who led the U-boat campaign, together with double agent Garbo and the mysterious Committee XX. 

ISBN: 9781852001247 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 291pp

An aura of mystery surrounds a medieval ring that was once the seal of a powerful Marcher Lord. The story that unfolds around its possessor tells of treason and rebellion, betrayal and intrigue. It tells of love too, a love that spans the centuries.

Medically discharged from the army in 1999, Eddie Mortimer is on his way to Ludlow, the seat of his Marcher Lord ancestors, hoping to sell a family heirloom, the Mortimer Seal, when he has a brief but passionate interlude with a mysterious Welsh girl called Cathy. 

Hospitalised after foiling a robbery, he finds that the people and events leading to his injury seem to coincide and become entangled with events from the early fifteenth century, where he becomes immersed in Owain Glyn Dwˆr’s struggle for Welsh independence and the part played in it by the Mortimers. In his traumatised state it is he who meets Glyn Dwˆr in the fateful battle at Pilleth in 1402.

He becomes enchanted too with Glyn Dwˆr’s daughter Catrin, although consumed with jealousy over her flirtations and continually haunted by distant memories of the wraith-like Cathy. He is an observer of Glyn Dwˆr’s early success in the war of independence, when the rebel becomes acclaimed Prince of Wales. Glyn Dwˆr’s power gradually wanes however, as Henry IV’s superior forces gain the advantage. For Mortimer the climax of the rebellion is reached when Harlech Castle is besieged by Prince Hal, the English Prince of Wales.

Thus Eddie’s dream is etched with historic reality, though perhaps the vicious battles and his two loves are all part of a dream from which there is no awakening.

ISBN: 9781852001148 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 327pp

Carefully woven around the facts surrounding the Glyn Dwˆr Welsh rebellion early in the 15th century this novel brings to life the characters and action of that time.

In the turbulent spring of 1400, Idris the archer joins Owain Glyn Dwˆr’s retinue at Sycharth. There he soon finds himself in love with Owain’s flirtatious daughter Catrin and involved in Owain’s epic struggle to regain Welsh sovereignty from Henry IV. 

Support for Owain’s rebellion grows and within a few years he commands power across Wales, is recognised by Charles V of France and gains many allies amongst dissident English lords.

Idris finds himself fighting alongside Dafydd, a burly experienced man at arms who introduces him to the brutality of battle. He also keeps a fatherly eye on Idris’s thwarted love affair with Catrin, now married to Sir Edmund Mortimer in a political match which has left Idris desolated.

Hopes of Welsh independence recede as the English rebel lords are defeated by Henry and a half-hearted French invasion fails. As the tide of war turns against Owain’s forces, Harlech Castle falls to the English and Catrin and her mother are imprisoned in London. The end of the rebellion comes when Owain and his men are defeated in their last great battle at Shrewsbury.

After years of being hunted in the Welsh hills and adamantly refusing the King’s pardon, Prince Owain and Idris set out on the long journey to the mystical ancient monument of Bryn Celli Ddu on Anglesey, where Owain makes his final bequest and Idris receives his reward.

ISBN: 9781852000981

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 300pp

Set in the South Wales village of Skewen and its surrounds in the turbulent third and fourth decades of the 19th century, this novel provides a fascinating glimpse of the social upheaval of those times.

Fighting against odds Iestyn Bowen, miner's son, fulfils his ambition of becoming a marine engineer through employment from the age of eleven in a small shipbuilding yard on the River Neath. The owner, Thomas Price, comes to see him as a future son-in-law and welcomes Iestyn's courtship of his daughter Megan.

His career and real affection for Megan, however, conflicts with his love of Mary Osborne, a girl from a Roman Catholic family, whose brother Robert is, like Mr Price's clerk Gareth Williams (Iestyn's friend and suitor to Iestyn's sister Bronwen), an active leader of an embryo Worker's Association. They are both also supporters of the Chartist movement and the ''Rebeccas' who are campaigning militantly against the tollgate charges.

More a victim of circumstance and the self-interest of others than his own failings, Iestyn becomes involved in a tollgate riot in which the tollkeeper is murdered. Eluding arrest he escapes aboard an outward steamship, originally built in Mr Price's yard.

His hurried escape is aided by both Megan and Mary coming together to help. But who is the girl beside him on the ship as it leaves?

ISBN: 9781852000936 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 270pp