Round and Round the Orchard

Griselda’s mother is disturbed when the half-brother of her late husband criticises the choice they took in sending their Protestant daughter, known as Selly, to a Catholic school. 

Selly discovers many difficulties in life as she exchanges the placid, honest world of the gentle nuns for the harsh reality of the modern world in the late twentieth century. 

In her early relationships with men Selly soon realises that her expectations are far too high, and this is not helped by the revelation that her Uncle Jack wishes to marry her mother, making the bond between them sorely tested. 

With her own marriage to Ted, a much older widower, Selly finds there are many strains. Ted is used to his own ways and has a fairly old-fashioned outlook on life. She is left in a quandary: does she behave like her namesake in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, being a ‘humble, hardworking, dutiful maiden’, or will she become a woman with spirit, standing firm on her own grounds? 

The birth of a son does not help the couple, with the rift between them becoming greater and Ted’s dominance over her life more specific. And the circumstances surrounding the sad loss of their child bring events to a climax. 

Finally, Selly is given the opportunity to change the course of her future, involving one of the first men with whom she had been attached. Her Catholic education still impacts on her conscience, but she must make a decision which will determine the rest of her life. 

ISBN: 9781852001551 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 178pp

When Caroline arranges a dinner party, an extra person, invited by her husband John, increases the number to thirteen.

Johannah, a particularly superstitious guest, upsets the evening by her warning that before the year is out one of those seated around the table will surely die.

This prediction is ridiculed by the other guests, but strangely the night of the dinner party appears to be a turning point in the lives of each and every one of them.

As all the guests' lives unfold during the following year, each unique but some interlinking with others, the intriguing question is: will anyone be missing from Caroline's special dinner party twelve months on?

ISBN: 9781852001520 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 185pp

Bronwen Owen, just retired at the age of 60, is considering a proposal of marriage from Ben, and this leads her to remember his first proposal more than forty years earlier. 

At that time, during the exciting years of the 1930s, an invitation to a party in London by her friend Madelaine leads to her meeting the type of person she had never encountered before, thus prompting her to reflect that Ben might be a bit dull by comparison. On top of this she is plunged into another world away from home when she is sent to Devon at the beginning of World War II.

Joining the Women’s Land Army, Bronwen’s experiences with the different farms and families for which she works are quite an education and also expand her possible relationships with men. But although there are times when she meets men she likes, it seems she always draws back at the last minute. These circumstances lead to a landlady in Devon pointing out that if she went round and round the orchard too many times she would find only windfalls left. A statement which will haunt Bronwen many times over the years. 

This mainly wartime story draws considerably from the author’s own experiences in the Women’s Land Army, giving it an authentic and captivating appeal.

ISBN: 9781852001476 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 204pp

Madelaine and Bronwen meet for the first time at their new office employment in London during the late 1930s. With Madelaine coming from a well-off background, her father 25 years older than her mother, and most of her life spent enjoying herself, often in the company of the kitchen staff or maids, she has little in common with Bronwen, a girl from a more down-to-earth, homely family. After initial dislike the two girls become friends and the self-assured Madelaine even secretly envies the rather dull family life of Bronwen.

Meanwhile Madelaine aims to get married, preferably to a rich man, and manages to trick her first husband into marriage, although she already has her doubts about the affair.

With the breakout of the Second World War Madelaine decides she might join the Women 's Land Army and asks Bronwen, who is already a member, to tell her about the work. Bronwen invites her down for a weekend visit to the farm where she works; the outcome leaving Madelaine with a confirmed hatred of the countryside which will influence her for the rest of her life.

The story unfolds through the decades as Madelaine marries three more times and becomes recognised as a confirmed town girl, with her dislike of the countryside actually seriously affecting her life. How much is this down to that one experience back in the early 1940s, and will her life ever be truly contented?

ISBN: 9781852001391 

Size: 217x140mm 

Binding: hardback 

Length: 171pp