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Brightfire: A Tale of Sutton Hoo
Price range: $3.99 through $10.99Born in Zambia, I lived in Cape Town, before leaving on a transport ship in 1944 to return ‘home’ to England. My parents wanted to be with their families, even though World War 2 had not ended.
We lived in Kent, Surrey, Yorkshire and Norfolk before I went to Royal Holloway College, University of London, to read English (including Old English and Modern Drama). I have lived and taught in Suffolk since my marriage in 1964, and eventually became Head of English and Drama at Woodbridge School.
What is important to me? My family; literature, both reading and writing; theatre, on both sides of the curtain and travel. I am very fortunate to have travelled almost worldwide, from Iceland to Australia.
I am a National Trust volunteer at Sutton Hoo (site of the famous ship burial and treasure) and a Sutton Hoo Society Guide. I thoroughly enjoy sharing the history of Sutton Hoo with thousands of visitors each year. Renewing my acquaintance with the Anglo-Saxons re-awakened my interest in their language, culture and customs, and lead me to write two Anglo-Saxon historical novels based in the land of the Wuffings in the 7th century AD.
Apart from this writing, among the most exciting things I have done are swimming with dolphins on the Florida Keys, scuba-diving on the Great Barrier Reef and acting in the National Drama Festivals, where I was lucky enough to get a nomination in the Final.
Writing is something of a fourth career, as I have also worked as a TV film extra and run a local bookshop. As our forebears knew, life is for living and knowledge is for sharing: I enjoy giving talks to local societies and book clubs as well as doing book-signings.
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Murder at the House of Funerals
Price range: $3.99 through $25.99It’s almost Halloween! The perfect holiday for sweet munchies, monsters, and murder! Attorney Tracy Brubaker Shane is especially looking forward to October 31, 2019, because a childhood hero will be returning to the small screen – live! Former horror host Richard George, aka Dr. Mort Itchin, comes out of retirement to again present a classic horror film from his House of Funerals, and Tracy will be in the studio audience. She even manages to be invited to rehearsals. But soon after her arrival behind the scenes, she realizes everyone is not wallowing in happy nostalgia. The thorn is everyone’s side is Carl Jeffries, who once-upon-a-time played Dr. Mort’s sidekick, Nagging Skeleton. Jeffries daughter, Megan Wallace, is producing the program. But there’s no love lost between father and child. The show’s director is in love with Megan and isn’t too pleased with the friction Jeffries is causing. Other crew members have their own reasons for despising Jeffries. When the violence finally erupts in a most appropriate, if grisly, fashion, Tracy is right there to begin her investigation, especially when her hero is charged with the crime. Not surprisingly, she discovers multiple possible motives including buried secrets, sheer hatred, and old-fashioned showmanship. But can Tracy find the truth in time so the show can go on? It’s another Tracy Brubaker mystery filled with tricks, treats, and surprises. Happy Halloween!
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Murder in Mellifont
Price range: $3.99 through $12.99“The blood splattered chancel stone glistened as if the life force spread across the limestone could tell a story of its own…”
And so begins the mystery of the Lady in Black and the quest for what she sought. Once again two friends on leave from the sessions of the Vatican Council in 1965 find themselves embroiled in murder, mystery and ancient prophecies. This time the detective duo of Ron De Cenza and Bob Wentz is joined by a girl from Georgia, Susan, and Ron’s sister Jan not to mention their new friends on a research holiday in Ireland. There amongst the ruins of Mellifont and ancient castles and Hermitage of Medieval Monks a story as old as the mystical Nuatha who came to settle the Emerald Isle and as new as greed possessing mere humans is discovered. There amongst the footsteps of St. Patrick, St. Malachy and St. Erc they find themselves struggling with their own feelings of who they are and what they are called to be. There in Ron’s arms a dying woman sends him on a journey to find the truth.
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Murder at the World’s Fair
Price range: $3.99 through $12.99The Vatican has given permission for one of its greatest treasures to be exhibited at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. As America prepares to receive one of the most revered works of art in the world, others are planning for the greatest heist of the century. Into this mix of celebration and theft planning come, two buddies, Ron De Cenza and Bob Wentz who are studying for the priesthood. With them is a girl from Georgia, Susan Liguori, who fancies one of them. Together they find themselves searching for a dead body, matching wits with a police detective, trapping mobsters, spying in the United Nations and finding justice for a murder victim and an accused murderer.
“Murder at the World’s Fair” will have you rubbing elbows with diplomas and prelates, escaping the clutches of henchmen out to kill, uncovering a secret love, witnessing faith come to life, entering the realm of the underworld, revealing plots, clues, and true identifies while combating rage which turns the white Carrara marble red with innocent blood.
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The Sinai Artifact
Price range: $3.99 through $15.99The murder of an antiquities curator at the Smithsonian Institution brings FBI agent, Ted Lansing to the prestigious Washington museum. He again steps into an all-consuming case that takes him from the comforts of his new life to the barren, mountainous terrain of the Sinai Peninsula in search of the killer and an elusive piece of granite, The Sinai Artifact.
The curator’s death and subsequent recovery of the priceless artifact becomes a race across the globe, first to Rome and ultimately to the Middle East, all with deadly consequences. What secrets do the objects hold, and how many innocent victims must die in search of the greatest archeological discovery of all time? Or is the oddly shaped stone something else entirely?
From Lansing’s initial discovery that his prime suspect is not who she first appeared to be, to a cast of conspiratorial characters, the case takes Lansing
halfway around the world.
One time German Stasi agent, Hans Richter, now in the employ of Russia’s clandestine service, orders the murder of an elderly Vatican priest who comes too close to the artifact’s true secret, but it is only the start of Richter’s murderous quest for the priceless stone.
Roadblocks to Richter’s pursuit of the treasure, and Lansing’s relentless hunt to uncover the secret buried in the Sinai, are thwarted by a formidable adversary of Richter, linguist, and expert in biblical languages, Russian archaeologist Irina Kazakov. But for which side is she working?
What are the Russian’s hiding, keeping from the world? Why is the Catholic Church so interested in recovering the oddly shaped stone? Does the centuries old monastery of Santa Katerina and its complement of Greek Orthodox priests hold answer?
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The Truth Of The Unknown Interpreter
Price range: $3.99 through $12.99The Truth of an Unknown Interpreter is an intriguing fictional story, with some elements of a real-life experience. A young man who is hard of hearing moves from his home country to live in a state in the U.S. He wishes to get assimilated to the hearing world but needs an interpreter to enable him to communicate effectively to others and understand what is being taught in class. His first experience with interpreters was not good but when he moved to the U.S, he met a nice interpreter who he grew to like. Unluckily, this interpreter goes missing and is later found dead under mysterious circumstances. The young man gets another interpreter, who turns out to be his worst nightmare. It turns out that this interpreter is involved in an evil cult, which offers human beings for sacrifices…
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The Case of the Missing Girl
Price range: $3.99 through $9.99A little girl mysteriously disappears from an elementary school playground in Colorado Springs. Sixteen-year-old twins, Shelby and Daniel Anderson, work with the police to try to find the little girl. Will Shelby and Daniel help find the girl before it is too late?
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The Second Son: Dynastic Disasters and Political Intrigue: England 1660
Price range: $3.99 through $23.99Luke, now the King’s special agent is sent to one of the home counties to assess the suitability of the shire’s gentry to represent the King across the county, in Parliament and on the bench. Luke finds a fractured Royalist community divided by family feuds, social class, generational disputes, and bitterness between those who went into exile with the King and those who remained behind and suffered under the Republic. The assessment is sidetracked by an alleged massacre, a disappearing Cromwellian magistrate, ambitious, conniving and predatory women, a vindictive husband, secret societies, the plague, closely kept secrets, man eating animals, and a spate of attempted and successful murders.
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The Malevolent Isle: Murder, Magic and Mystery: Yorkshire 1660
Price range: $3.99 through $23.99Luke’s first mission for the incoming King is to investigate the administration of an aging autocratic peer who is also a purveyor of magic. This marquis is undermined by a rebellious son who openly supports the work of an outlawed Catholic priest-and indulges in shady land deals.
Luke’s investigation confronts a defrocked Anglican vicar, several promiscuous women and a series of murders whose motives may lie in the present, or in the distant past.
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The Spanish Relation: Murder in Cromwellian England
Price range: $3.99 through $19.99Luke, Cromwell’s top agent spends late 1654 and much of 1655 in Somerset inquiring into the murder of an obscure squire. The victim’s family and village are deeply divided revealing a multitude of suspects-feuding relatives, corrupt politicians, Royalist supporters, Spanish agents, religious fanatics, a wanton witch, and a mysterious man in a golden cape
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The Frown of Fortune: A French Affair
Price range: $3.99 through $19.99In 1653 Luke and his deputy Harry are sent to Paris to negotiate secretly with the exiled king. They are separated and pursue independent investigations. Harry, who reaches the royal court attempts to solve the murders of two ladies-in-waiting, while a disabled Luke investigates the death of an aristocrat’s wife. The investigations are complicated by a feisty abbess, hysterical nuns, an unscrupulous courtier, a Canadian adventurer, and a rampaging bear. Thee search for English Catholic treasure focusses everybody’s attention.
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The Angelic Assassin: Criminals and Conspirators
Price range: $3.99 through $19.99In 1652 politicians secretly plan to disband the army. Its commander Oliver Cromwell sends Luke to foil these plotters, and find the murderers of three excise officers who stumbled across illegal ammunition that could be used against the army and its supporters. Luke uncovers a combination of corrupt politicians, powerful criminals, a bevy of would-be beautiful assassins, foreign agents and an unhinged religious leader whose various interests endanger Luke’s life, and threaten the army’s existence.
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The Black Thistle: A Scottish Conspiracy
Price range: $3.99 through $24.99In 1651, a fatally wounded Scottish trooper is found by an English patrol. Before he takes his last breath, he reveals the details of a major plot being hatched against Scottish leaders and English generals within Clarke Castle the same castle where many kidnapped Scots are being held.
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Fabulous 8
Price range: $3.99 through $15.00The collection of stories on the following pages is based on true events and personal relationships between unforgettable people of different lifestyles and backgrounds with whom I have shared moments of tenderness, laugher, tears and hope. Storytelling is cleansing. It is my vision that readers will set off on soul-searching mission to use every aspect of their humanity to fully express their creativity; believing, as I do, in the life-changing potential narratives.
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