5 November: Fire

It's bonfire night and all over the UK people are lighting fires. Fire is defined as a rapid chemical change which produces heat and light, or for the more scientificially minded, the exothermic oxidation of a combustable substance. Ten facts about fire.

1. Three things are necessary for fire to happen: fuel, Oxygen and heat. Fire extinguishers work by removing one of those three things. Pouring Water on a fire removes the heat, a CO2 extinguisher removes the oxygen, for example. Hence Earth is the only planet in our Solar System where fire can exist. There's not enough oxygen on any of the others.
2. A flame is basically a mixture of gases and solids chemically reacting. Hence the colour of a flame varies according to what is being burnt and the oxygen level, not by how hot it is. This is why candle flames are blue at the bottom, because there they take up fresh air with more oxygen. At the top of the flame a lot of that oxygen has been burnt off, making the flame Yellow.
3. A candle flame burns at 1,000 degrees centigrade; a blowtorch at 2,200 degrees. If you burn a book, the paper burns at 451 degrees fahrenheit, which is why Ray Bradbury titled his book Fahrenheit 451 after his editors told him his original title, The Fireman, was too boring.
4. No one knows who invented the fire hydrant, because the patent was lost... in a fire. Talking of fire hydrants, during the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, just one fire hydrant survived long enough to be put to use putting out the fires started by the quake. That fire hydrant was painted gold in memory of the event. It's still there, in the Mission District at the top of Dolores Park. Every year, on the anniversary of the earthquake, it gets repainted.
5. When organic materials, such as wood, wax or petrol burn, oxygen combines with the hydrogen in the material and creates water. Chances are if you see a clear liquid dripping from the exhaust pipe of a car, it's the water produced by the controlled fire in the engine.
6. Early humans worshipped fire, and in time, personified it with fire deities. Some fire gods are: Ra and Sekhmet (Egypt); Fuji (Japan); Bridgit and Grannus (Celtic); Hephaestus (Greek); Vulcan (Roman); and Mixcoatl, the Aztec god who is said to have introduced fire to humanity.
7. Whatever you do, don't try to stick anything made of Cotton with superglue, because applying superglue to cotton makes it catch fire. Health and safety instructions will tell you not to wear cotton gloves or even Blue jeans, when using superglue.
8. In mythology, salamanders are associated with fire, because the creatures tend to hang out in rotting logs. When these logs were used as firewood, the salamanders would come out, and people thought they had been magically created by the flames.
9. Forest fires, or wildfires, travel faster uphill than downhill. The steeper the slope the faster the fire spreads. 90% of them are caused by human activity.
10. You can make fire using ice. The ice must be perfectly clear, however. To make a fire, carve it into the shape of a lens. Then it can be held over dry tinder in sunlight in the same way you might use a magnifying glass.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

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4 November: Dwight D. Eisenhower

On this date in 1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected the 34th president of the United States. He served as President from 1953 to 1961 and was one of the most popular Presidents in history. Here are 10 things you might not know about him.

1. His name was actually David Dwight Eisenhower. He was named after his father although his middle name was different so he couldn't be referred to as "Junior". His mother switched the two names around to avoid any confusion caused by having two Davids in the house. The President's working retreat, Camp David, was re-named by Eisenhower in 1953 after his father and Grandson. It was previously known as Shangri-La.
2. Eisenhower was an anglicised version of the German name Eisenhauer, which means "iron miner". His ancestors were farmers in Germany.
3. He came from a military background. He went to West Point and played a role in both world wars, although he didn't see any active combat. During WWI he trained tank drivers and by WWII he'd achieved a high enough rank that he didn't actually fight. He eventually reached the giddy heights of General of the Army, five-star, which only nine Americans have ever achieved.
4. He was the first president to use a Helicopter for short trips in and out of the White House. At his own suggestion, this mode of transport was adopted because it was safer than using a limo. His first such trip was in 1957 when he left the White House in a helicopter as part of an evacuation drill.
5. Generals of the Army never actually retire but remain on active duty till they die. Hence in 1961, when he retired as President, he went back to active duty.
6. When he was 58, he took up painting. He'd been inspired by watching a painter produce a portrait of Mamie Eisenhower, and was given a painting set as a gift by the artist, Thomas E. Stephens. He was encouraged to take up the hobby by Winston Churchill. Eventually, he painted about 250 pictures but never rated his own work very highly. When his paintings were shown at an exhibtion, and a reporter asked him what one of them symbolised, he replied, "They would have burned this shit a long time ago if I weren't the President of the United States."
7. He had a reputation as an excellent writer of speeches, letters and reports, and contributed to a guidebook about WWI battlefields. He was sufficiently good that William Randolph Hearst tried to headhunt him as a military correspondent for his magazine. Eisenhower declined, even though he would have earned three times as much as a journalist than he did in the military.
8. He was an avid golfer, too, which was bad news for the Squirrels which lived around the White House and used to bury their acorns on the putting green. This annoyed Eisenhower so much that he instructed his valet to shoot any squirrels seen near the green. Luckily for the squirrels, White House staff decided instead to trap them and release them into Rock Creek Park.
9. One enduring legacy from his presidency is the Interstate Highway system in the USA. Inspired by the autobahns in Germany, Eisenhower saw the advantages of such a system, not least to enable cities to be evacuated if they were targeted during a war. While driving in the US you might see commemorative signs reading "Eisenhower Interstate System" under a circle of five stars. The stars represent his five star rank in the military.
10. He was the first president to be limited to only serving two terms under the 22nd Amendment. While it was actually passed during Harry Truman's term, he lost the next election anyway. He was also the first to get a lifetime pension, paid staff and security.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

November 3: November

Here are 10 facts about the month of November.

1. The word November comes from novem, the Latin word for nine, as it was the ninth month in the Roman calendar. Even when a couple more months were added to the year, and November became the eleventh month, it kept the name.
2. The birthstones for people born in November are topaz, citrine, obsidian and onyx.
3. Their birth flower is the Chrysanthemum.
4. Names given to the full Moon in November by various Native American cultures include: The Moon The Rivers Begin to Freeze; Deer Rutting Moon; Moon When The Water is Black With Leaves; Geese-going Moon; Time of Much Poverty; Moon of The Falling Leaves; Moon When All is Gathered in; and Snowy Mountains in The Morning Moon.
5. If you get a clear night sky in November, you might witness the Anromedid, Leonid, Monocerotid, North and South Taurid, Phoenicid or Orionid meteor showers.
6. In weather lore, the folk saying goes If there's ice in November to bear a duck, there'll be nothing after but sludge and muck.
7. November is said to be a lucky month in which to get married. One folk saying declares: "Married in veils of November mist, Fortune your wedding ring has kissed"; and another, "If you wed in bleak November, Only joy will come, remember!"
8. Awareness campaigns which have adopted November as their month include: Alzheimer's Disease, Aviation History, Diabetic Eye Disease, Family Stories, Drumming, Lung Cancer, AIDS, Diabetes, Epilepsy, Adoption, Autobiography wiriting, Bone marrow donation, Neurofibromatosis, Pepper, stamp collecting, Native American Heritage and Veganism.
9. There's also Movember, a portmanteau of "Mo" (short for moustache, and November), during which men grow moustaches to increase awareness of health issues specific to men, in cluding prostate and testicular cancer, and male suicide. Movember started in 1999 when a group of young men in Australia had the idea of growing moustaches for charity. Since 2010, the International Man of Movember is chosen from 21 national winners at the end of the month and is the face of Movember for the coming year. The first winner of the title was Mark Knight from London.
10. Another annual November event is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which enourages writers to produce a 50,000 word manuscript in the course of the month. This, too, began in 1999. A website (www.nanowrimo.org) provides encouragement and the chance for participants to share their work. The focus is on getting the novel written - the editing comes later. People who donate at least $300 to the website (or at least the first 250 of them) get tickets to "The Night of Writing Dangerously" a write-a-thon for charity which includes food, talks, contests, and much writing.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

2 November: Day of the Dead

Today is the Day of the Dead. 10 things you might not know about this holiday.

1. The Day of the Dead, or Dia de Muertos is best known as a celebration which take place in Mexico, with its roots in Aztec rituals to honour the dead. However, there are also celebrations, with some regional variations, in the Philippines, Brazil, Ecuador, Belize and the USA.
2. Dia de Muertos is a public holiday in Mexico.
3. A feature of the celebrations is brightly coloured skulls made from sugar and people painting their faces. There's more to that than simply creating a riot of bright colours - the colours which are commonly used all mean something. Yellow means sun and unity, because under the sun, we are all the same. White stands for purity, purple is for grief, red is for the blood of life and Pink means happiness.
4. Skulls aren't the only symbols which crop up. Butterflies represent the soul of the departed, and marigolds are also used for decoration, because their scent is thought to lead the departed spirits back home.
5. Aztecs, Toltecs and other pre-Hispanic cultures believed that death was simply another phase in the continuum of life, and that dead people were still very much part of the community. The Day of the Dead is the day their spirits return for an annual visit. Unlike Halloween, where spirits are meant to be malevolent and scary, on the Day of the Dead they are welcomed with joy and celebration.
6. Families build altars, or ofrendas, in their homes on this day to encourage their departed relatives to drop by. The altars will contain the person's favourite foods, photos and, if the departed was a child, toys.
7. It's also a day when families visit family graves, clean and decorate them, and leave offerings.
8. A literary tradition associated with this day is Calaveras literarias (which translates as skulls literature), which consists of short poems, usually in the form of epitaphs. Alongside that, cartoons of skeletons, often dedicated to public figures, appear in newspapers.
9. The Day of the Dead is recognised by UNESCO as a part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It was added to the list in 2008.
10. Mexico City's huge Day of the Dead parade has only been happening since 2016, and was inspired by the Day of the Dead Parade featured in the James Bond film, Spectre. Large parades are also held in Chicago and Los Angeles.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

1 November: Play a Game of Chess Day

Today is Play a Game of Chess Day. Here are some fascinating facts about chess:

1. Chess is an ancient game which dates back to 6th century India and Persia, where it was known as chatrang. The English word Chess derives from the Persian word for king, Shah. Check, as in check-mate, derives from the same source.
2. The rules haven't always stayed the same. They've been modified several times since 1200 to make it into the game we know today. The Queen was originally a vizier, but by 1475 had become the most powerful piece on the board (people of the time referred to the new version of the game as "mad queen chess"). At about the same time, pawns gained the ability to move two squares on their first move, and castling was introduced. It is only since the 19th century that the convention that white moves first has been observed. Modern rules they'd never have guessed at back then include drug testing (chess is considered a sport) and disqualification if your mobile phone rings during a game.
3. The longest game of chess in a tournament lasted for 269 moves, which took 20 hours and 15 minutes. It ended in a draw. The longest game possible, according to theorists, would last 5,949 moves. There was once a game which lasted four months when Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster, challenged the world, or 75 countries, anyway, to a game. The world's move was decided by a majority vote. It only lasted 69 turns, however. At that point 51% of the world voted to give up.
4. In mathematical terms, there are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the universe.
5. The word "gambit" is a specific chess term meaning to sacrifice for advantage, which has found its way into everyday language.
6. Today we refer to pawns in terms of their position on the board, but in times gone by they were given names based on commoners' occupations: City guard (policeman), doctor, innkeeper, merchant/moneychanger, weaver/clerk, blacksmith (usually the knight's pawn, to take care of the horses), farmer and in the far left, the "sinister" position, a gambler or lowlife.
7. The rows on a chessboard are called ranks and the columns are called files.
8. The folding chess board was invented by a priest. Clergy were forbidden by the church to play chess, but one sneaky priest still wanted to play, so he invented a board that would fold up so it would appear that he was carrying books.
9. The most expensive chess set in the world is the Jewel Royale set which is valued at over $9.8 million. It was made in Britain by the Royale Jewel Company. It's made of gold and platinum and is decorated with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, saphhires and pearls.
10. We've all heard of computers that play chess against humans, such as Deep Blue, but the first chess playing "machine" was invented in the 18th century by Wolfgang von Kempelon. It took people 84 years to realise that there was a person sitting inside it. The Wizard of Oz of chess!

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

31 October: Witches

Witches. Associated with Halloween, generally believed to be evil, ugly old women who are usually burned at the stake. These 10 facts will show you much of it isn't actually true.

1. We don't actually know the origins of the word, “witch”. A likely candidate is the Old English word wicce, which means “female sorceress,” the same root whch gives us the name of the modern day belief system of Wicca. Or it could come from the Old English wigle, meaning “divination” ord wih, meaning “idol,” or the Proto-Germanic word wikkjaz, meaning “necromancer,” or “one who wakes the dead.”
2. A person need not be a woman, old, or ugly to be a witch. Men practiced witchcraft too, although they may be referred to as wizards, warlocks or sorcerers. People put to death for witchcraft in the olden days included both men and women and even children. During the Trier Witch Trials in Germany, from 1581 to 1593, the 368 people executed included leading men such as judges, priests, and deans of colleges.
3. Burning at the stake was actually a very rare punishment for witchcraft and not even legal in Britain or the American colonies. Most of them were hanged, which as well as being a legal means of execution was a lot less hassle than building a big bonfire. Hangings were much more cost-effective and efficient if you had a lot of witches to get rid of.
4. People got quite hysterical about witchcraft in the 15^th century, thanks in part to theological books about it, such as the Malleus Maleficarum written by two clergyman of the Dominican Order—Jakob Sprenger, the dean of the University of Cologne, and Heinrich Kramer, a theology professor at the University of Salzburg. James I of England got in on the act too by writing his own book on the subject and presiding personally over witch trials.
5. Exodus 22:18, “You shall not permit a sorceress to live,” and Leviticus 20:27, “a man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them” was all the excuse people needed to persecute hundreds of people, most of whom were guilty of no more than using herbal remedies or disagreeing with local politicians. Since very little evidence was needed to convict someone as a witch, it would have been easy to get anyone you didn't like, for whatever reason, put to death. You could say they appeared in your Dreams, for example, used magic to steal your partner or put a curse on someone who was ill. A “witches mark” was a common piece of evidence which meant people with extra nipples or even moles or scars could be convicted for no other reason. Another incentive was that the Witchfinder General and his assistants in the 17^th century would be paid £5 (a lot of money in them days!) for every witch they caught.
6. Technically, England’s Witchcraft Act of 1735 was in effect until 1951. As recently as 1944, a woman named Jane Rebecca Yorke was found guilty under the law. However, what Yorke was actually doing was fraud – holding bogus séances. In fact, when the witchcraft law went, it was replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums Act. However, laws against witchcraft are very much alive in other countries, like Saudi Arabia, where witchcraft is still punishable by death.
7. A common image of a witch is a woman mixing up dubious ingredients like “eye of Frog and toe of Bat” in a cauldron. Such names for spell ingredients were probably code names for common herbs used to make natural remedies, written down that way to stop others from stealing your recipe.
8. Another thing a witch might be doing is flying around on a broomstick. That idea is thought to originate from pagan rituals in which participants would rub herbal ointments containing hallucinogens on themselves and on a staff which they would “ride.” The hallucinogens would induce the sensation of floating as if they were actually flying.
9. While we may associate witches with Halloween, it isn't the only time of year a witch, or indeed, a modern day Wiccan, celebrates. May Day (Beltane), Midsummer and even (in Sweden) Easter are witch party days, too.
10. Only one of the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth has a name – Hecate, after the Greek goddess of witchcraft.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

30 October: John Adams, Second US President

Born on this date in 1735 was John Adams, the second president of the USA. 10 things you might not know about him.

1. Of the first five US Presidents, he was the only one not to own slaves. That said, he was opposed to abolishing slavery.
2. He was also the only one of the first five not to come from Virginia. He was from Braintree, Massachusetts.
3. When George Washington became president, Adams proposed referring to him as "His Majesty the President" or "His Highness the President," on the grounds that the heads of things like cricket clubs were called presidents. However, having just got rid of a monarch, the American people weren't too keen on the idea. Because he was of ample figure, this led to his opponents referring to him as "His Rotundity".
4. He was the first president to live in the White House.
5. Before entering politics, he was a lawyer. One of the things he's famous for is successfully defending a group of British soldiers who were involved in the Boston Massacre. Although anti-British sentiment ran high, Adams believed everyone had the right to legal defence and that the accused is innocent until proven guilty.
6. He was the father of the sixth president, John Quincy Adams.
7. He was a prolific letter writer. Since he was so often forced to be away from his wife, Abigail, he wrote her over 1,000 letters.
8. Adams drafted the Massachusetts Constitution, which, dating from 1780, is the oldest constitution in the world still in use today.
9. At time of writing, John Adams is one of only 10 presidents to serve a single term. He blamed his failure to get elected for a second term on the fact that he'd issued proclamations calling for days of fasting and prayer. He missed out on a second term by just 250 votes. Had 250 more people in New York voted for him, he would have been re-elected.
10. He died at the age of 90, making him the longest lived president until Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan who both lived to be 93. He died on July 4, 1826, on the same day, incedentally, as his rival Thomas Jefferson. His last words were, "Thomas Jefferson survives." Jefferson had, in fact, already died, but the news hadn't reached Adams.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle