A Time to Prey - Chapter TWO

A Time to Prey | Crime Detective Mystery
by Julius Falconer

When news of the bishop’s death came through, Sergeant Hewitt and I drove out post haste to Hartlebury Castle to begin our investigation.  It was a cool autumn morning with the promise of some warmth later on as the mists cleared. The ten-mile journey on the A449 was pleasant if unexciting. Bevere Lane, Egg Lane, Lock Lane, Sinton Lane and other country roads tempted us to diverge from our chosen path of official business, but Hewitt drove determinedly on until we drew up at the front of the castle. We had hardly had time to get our bearings and admire the architecture, which I had not seen before, when a tall, lanky clergyman, doleful of countenance, stepped out to meet us.

And so it began...

Same same, but different | Travel
by Sally Wootton

‘Mum, can I go to Greenland?’ I was just seventeen years old when I first got the travelling bug. I was at school, in the first year of my A-levels and had no real idea what I wanted to do with my life. I’d toyed with the idea of being a teacher when I was ten and liked to boss my sister around from the front of our pretend classroom and there was a time I thought I’d fancy being an architect, until I realised it required seven years of dedicated study. I’d never been further than the South   of France on holiday with my parents and that was quite exotic considering the years of caravanning on the Isle of Wight and Cornwall.
Then one day as I sat, a newly appointed sixth former looking out onto the rest of the school and listening to another boring assembly, something caught my attention.

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Quotes: ...Jessamyn West

"Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures."

--- Jessamyn West

The Assembly Room - Chapter 1

The Assembly Room | Fiction: Children/YA, Historical, Paranormal
by Bryony Allen

Looking back, Merryn wished she had trusted her instincts when she first saw The Assembly Room. She should have yelled at her father to turn round and take them back to their miserable rented house, in the most miserable estate in town, back to her miserable school. She should have told him that she could cope with her damp, tiny bedroom and the booming of music rattling pictures off her wall. She should have said that she could put up with the rubbish teachers who had given up on the idea of discipline, the gangs of children that had more power than the teachers and the universal mockery of her ambition to be a teacher.

A Figure in the Mist - PART ONE: The Death of Lady Amelia Walden

A Figure in the Mist | Crime Detective Mystery
by Julius Falconer

Her Honour Judge Hines Q.C. looked impassive as the trial entered its second day. The preliminaries had been dealt with, and the prosecution was about to open its case. Court 12 at the Court House in Leeds on that 27th day of July, 2010, contained as many members of the press and public, and almost as many legal staff, as it was physically possible to squeeze in, in the light of Health and Safety regulations, the requirements of good order and the rules that governed considerations of what was seemly in a court of law. The case of Regina v. Purbright had aroused much interest amongst the inhabitants of Monk Fryston village, where the murder of Amelia Walden at the Hall Hotel was the most exciting event since a lorry travelling too fast had left the road and demolished the public urinal in 1931.

Quotes: ...Charles de Montesquieu

"A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight."

--- Charles de Montesquieu 

Call Me Valentine

Call Me Valentine | Book Genre
by Derek Rosser

I was nine and a half years old when, on my way home from school, I read the news in large letters on a billboard:

“GERMANS INVADE DANZIG”.

I hurried home to find my parents listening to the radio with worried expressions on their faces. I thought it was all very exciting but, of course, a nine year old could not appreciate what was to come.

We all listened to Mr Chamberlain’s broadcast on September 3rd 1939 telling us that we were now at war with Germany. The papers were full of it. A British Expeditionary Force had been despatched to France and would support the French army in the defence of the Maginot line. The Germans meanwhile were mopping up the Polish cavalry and took about six weeks to reach the North Sea coast and turn their attention onto the French. The construction of the Maginot line proved to be a waste of money and effort since the Germans went around it by way of Belgium and the Netherlands.