These books are historical fiction for confident readers with some adult themes.
They are extensively researched and are historically accurate.
By telling the personal stories of those who lived through and participated in world changing events I hope to give the reader an intimate and deeper insight into the individuals who had no idea of how events would unfold or how their own story was going end.
While taking readers into the past I firmly anchor them to the present through Hal's family life.
Through this format I hope to offer a more thorough understanding of history than mere dates, facts and figures can offer.
There are currently seven books
in the series, BOOK EIGHT IS IN PRODUCTION
The Spirit of 1916
Hal is a young man whose thirteenth birthday proves to be life changing as he is haunted by a spirit from one hundred years ago – Jack
Hal belongs to a generation born into a world irrevocably changed by the events of 9/11 with his country engaged in a war of terror.
He learns from Jack about Total War, ‘the war to end all wars’.
Through Jack’s experiences Hal bears witness to death, tragedy, suffering,
honour, duty, courage, sacrifice, love and above all friendship.
Centenary of the Battle of the Somme
1st July 2016
In the Hal's Spirits series the 28th October is an important date, its Hal's birthday and the date that all the spirits have died. In the first book, The Spirit of 1916, Jack died on the Somme Battlefield Saturday 28th October 1916. By some twist of fate, coincidence, happenstance I came across a medal for sale of a young man who died on the Somme on the 28th October 1916, he was one of 534 Allied soldiers who died on that day.
Private George Brewington Harding was born in 1887 in Folkstone, Kent to George and Susan Harding. He was a soldier in the 17th Battalion of the King's Royal Rifles and he died in a holding action at the Schwaben Redoubt - a German stronghold on the Somme approximately half a km long, 180 m wide near Thiepval overlooking the River Ancre. George has no grave, he his commemorated on the the Thiepval Memorial along with far too many other brave souls.
The second book in the series.
As Hal's fourteenth birthday approaches he wonders if meeting Jack will be a one off or is he destined to meet another. On the 28th October he meets Teddy, the spirit of a man held captive by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War. Through Hal's dreams Teddy tells his story - one he hadn't been able to tell anyone else.
Now available - the third book in the series set during the English Civil War. A country divided, brother against brother.
Now available
the fourth book in the series.
A different type of war - the war for equality
and.....
service to King and Country in the war to end all wars.
Far Too High a Price to Pay
A young man wants to leave his life in the coal mines of Northumberland, he wants adventure and a larger life. His decision takes him to the wide open spaces of the South African veldt during the second Boer War 1899-1902. It is a decision that has far reaching consequences for everyone in his life.
England Expected a boy of Spirit
to do his Duty
The sixth book in this series follows the life of Joe Howarth in the early 19th century a journey that begins off the Spanish coast in 1805.
Islands of no strategic or military importance
