. . a compelling memoir. Breezy and unpretentious, The Sanest Guy in the Room is a delightful collection of memories, insider information and after-dinner anecdotes' The Times'Brilliant stories and wonderful behind-the-scenes glimpses of a life and career in show-business . . . It's bloody brilliant . . . Read it!' Michael BallDon Black is the songwriter's songwriter, a composer's dream collaborator, and the man behind some of the twentieth century's greatest musical numbers.Black made his first foray into the glittering world of showbiz as a stand-up, before realising his error and focusing on his lifelong passion instead - music. Shirley Bassey, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Henry Mancini and Barbra Streisand are just some of the artists Black has worked with over the years - not to mention his frequent collaborator, West End legend Andrew Lloyd Webber - in what can only be described as a remarkable musical career. Yet, never one to court fame, Black has always remained what Mark Steyn coined as 'the sanest guy in the room'.Interwoven with the stories behind songs such as 'Diamonds are Forever' and 'Born Free' are vignettes of Black's life with his beloved wife Shirley, who died in March 2018, after almost sixty years of marriage. Black writes movingly about how the enormity of his grief changed his life, and how the dark days are slowly turning into dark moments.The Sanest Guy in the Room is a rich and delightful paean to a life lived through song. It reveals the essence of Black's craft, looks at those who have inspired him and allows us to understand what made those icons tick. It is also a poignant tribute to Shirley, his biggest inspiration. Told with wit, warmth and great humour, this is Don Black's astonishing musical journey and an insight into a life behind the lyrics.

    He’s also a vampire. He lives alone and avoids the other vampires in L.A., but Pete’s simple life goes haywire when he falls for Angie, the cute bartender at a Sunset Strip dive -- and when sinister vampire lord Carson Fitzgerald returns to claim his children, Pete learns that nothing's ever easy for a creature of the night.

    Ever since the death of his beloved dog Candy, he'd craved the unique companionship that had so enriched his childhood. Co-presenter of ITV's Long Lost Family, reuniting parents with children, as an adopted child himself Nicky knows all too well the tangled emotions and inner conflicts that go with being given up by your birth mother. It has taken a lifetime - and a miracle dog - to come to terms with abandonment and the feeling of being an imposter in your own life. Raw, honest and courageous in One of the Family, Nicky opens up about how being adopted has made him always feel like an outsider; the guilt he has carried towards his Mum and Dad for needing to trace his birth mother, and the crushing disappointment he felt when he finally met her. And for the first time, he writes about his emotional breakdown and how he has learned to live with a late diagnosis of bipolar. Through it all his passion for dogs and animals has been a lifeline. It is Maxwell's magic, a lesson from a Labrador in simple unconditional friendship, that has allowed him to see all the good in his life: from the security and safety of his childhood home, the love of his wife and four daughters and above all, to better understand the decisions taken by his birth mother to give him up for adoption.

     This is the dark but humourous tale of Sarah Pemberton, who is not a happy woman. A down to earth, inventive soul who despises her stuck up pompous husband Neil, who believes he is much more intelligent and important than she is. When he refuses her a divorce and emotionally blackmails her into staying with him by threatening to take custody of their daughter, she's decides to make life a little more entertaining for herself, by subtly torturing him at every available opportunity. Creative and adaptable by nature, with a wicked sense of humour, she comes up with more and more ways to ridicule him, without him ever knowing she has a hand in it. ...."During 1993-1994 amongst other things, I cooked him a meat pie with pedigree chum; Stole his car more times than I can count; put chilli powder in his underpants, sent a stripagram to his work (a fat one), and subscribed him to a gay porn mag! (Our paperboy avoided him like the plague after that.)"..... Finding accomplices in the form of her Aunt May, who lives in a crumbling old former hotel which was damaged during WWII, and May's two lodgers, a shy young hippy named Darren, along with his brother Matthew a former life model, they try to get rid of her husband by either 'Plan A', which consists of 'frame him for a crime so that he gets incarcerated', or 'Plan B' drive him to a nervous breakdown. Both plans are designed to discredit Neil in case of a custody battle for their daughter. There is only one little prerequisite for every little torturous idea though, and that is, IT HAS TO MAKE THEM LAUGH! Unbeknown to Sarah at first, she isn't the only one with a vendetta against her husband, his entire workforce hate his guts and exploit any opportunity to make him look bad. When plans A & B go disastrously wrong, Sarah and co set their sights on a new target, her in-laws. Interwoven throughout the story is the tale of Aunt May, the lynch pin of her little make shift family, who harbours secrets of her own that go back to the night the bomb fell on the east wing of the hotel. This is not a tale of a submissive woman suffering at the hands of abuse; this is the tale of a strong courageous woman having one last laugh at other people's expense. Contains very occasional strong language, and scenes that should not be repeated at home. Volume One of 'The Cuckoo' series

    All 97 counties of it! Surely it can't be as bad as everyone tells him. After twenty years living abroad, he thinks the time is right to search his homeland for the best of British using new eyes, those of a foreign tourist, and in the only way he knows how – by bicycle. Armed with a list of recommendations gathered from friends and strangers alike and the most spontaneous of routes, he pedals 5,000 miles through damp English country lanes, soggy Welsh moorland and windswept Scottish mountains. He gets wet quite often. Following on from the success and irreverent style of both No Place Like Home, Thank God and Hungry for Miles, Steven seeks out the quirky in the people he meets, the places he visits and the food he eats. Can his initial store of positivity survive the journey, or will it be ground down by the traffic, the weather and his British, vegetable-free diet of beer, pies and pork scratchings? In this, Book 1, The Journey South, Steven travels from Merseyside to Warwickshire, through the whole of Wales, the West Country, the south coast and to London. Armed with a bag of googly eyes, he meets a poetry-prescribing nurse, stumbles across Hilda Ogden's lawnmower, has his footwear stolen by foxes, discovers some very special Mexican fleas, crashes the TARDIS and visits dozens of British capitals, including its infidelity capital, its boob job capital and its dogging capital. He experiences "real" Britain – the good and the bad – its Morris dancers, pie 'n' mash and the pinnacle of British culture, a good old-fashioned street fight. The concluding part, The Journey North, covering the east of England, Scotland and the north-west of England will be available in Summer 2017.

    . . Now in his eighth decade, Whitehall is a fine raconteur, gloriously unreconstructed and still deeply suspicious of modernity' Daily Mail Standing in front of a full-length mirror in my dressing room at ITV studios, waiting to go on to the set of Backchat, I had a brief conversation with my reflection.'Michael, what the f*** do you think you're doing?'Theatrical agent Michael Whitehall spent a career pushing others into the spotlight. He had been involved behind the scenes with the careers of many prominent actors, including Colin Firth, Richard Griffiths, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Courtenay, Ian Ogilvy, Judi Dench, Edward Fox, Michael Fassbender, Angela Thorne and Nigel Havers.But then, much to his surprise, his son Jack becomes a successful comedian and actor and decides that his new comedy partner should be his father. Whitehall Snr. finds himself reluctantly appearing on stage and then television, cast as the archetypal grumpy old man and thrust, in his early seventies, into a whole new career in front of the camera. Minor fame comes at a sedate pace: one of the highlights being a record £300,000 win for charity with Jack on Channel 4's The Million Pound Drop.In this enchanting memoir Whitehall looks back on his life, from growing up in suburban London in the 1940s and '50s with his saintly father and social climbing-mother, who coined the phrase 'à la carte' to describe people who were posher than she was and whose company she craved, to falling into a career as a successful theatrical agent and producer. As he says, 'Actors can be egotistical, greedy and vain, but they're not half as bad as agents and producers.'Charming, gossipy and above all very funny, Backing Into The Spotlight is no ordinary show business memoir.

    Artist Riana Evans falls in love with a dilapidated mansion in Wales, despite its rumoured ghosts, and is delighted when its elderly, eccentric owner sells it to her for a pittance. The ‘ghosts’ prove good for business – inspiring her paintings in an almost supernatural way and providing welcome atmosphere at a series of profitable ghost-spotting weekends. But it soon becomes clear that there’s someone – or something – who’ll do anything to make sure Riana never discovers the secrets the house hides . . .

    OTHERS ARE LESS COMPLIMENTARY. Buckle up for a comedic roller coaster ride, with bad wigs, waxing disasters, holiday scams, a deluded hitman, lust, arson and murder. Albert Trollop takes refuge at his allotment and the betting office, while his wife, Gretyl, lives for the shopping channels, car boot sales and local gossip. After fifty years of marriage, she’s thinking of a new life, somewhere hot. He’s thinking of the crematorium. She’s thinking of stuffing herself in a bikini. He's thinking of a taxidermist. The Londoners continue their separate lives until a mysterious letter turns their world upside down. In Essex, Dave and Sharon Soddall are struggling on benefits and looking for a get-rich-quick solution. With the help of a devious financial advisor, they concoct a plan and ‘Costa Soddall Travel’ is born. Will the Soddalls pull off the con of a lifetime? Can Gretyl be silenced? Will Albert end up missing Gretyl? "'Missing Gretyl' is a rare treat - a brilliantly written comedy novel that's genuinely funny." Mark Stibbe, best selling, award-winning writer. Missing Gretyl is also available as a Kindle eBook through Amazon.

    what happens when you never let go of the ones you love?

    Who was Dan 'Spider' Shepherd before he signed up as an undercover cop and began working for MI5? The Sandpit rewinds with an action-packed rollercoaster to his days in the SAS...Dan Shepherd and his SAS team are sent into the badlands of Afghanistan to train the rebels who are battling Taliban fanatics.But what starts as a training mission in The Sandpit turns into a life or death struggle with Shepherd and his team very much in the firing line.Soon they are caught up in an international intrigue that threatens the stability of the whole Middle East.

    Hellfire and damnation await a woman whose psychiatrist may be more than he seems. And devastating secrets from the past are unleashed when an old man revisits his childhood bedroom…Scare Street is proud to present the best in bone-chilling supernatural horror. This volume contains three terrifying tales for your reading pleasure. Each story will keep you up long past the midnight hour, eager to turn the next page… Because the second your close your eyes, who knows what nightmares will come alive in the dark corners of your room? They creep closer, and closer. Their rotting claws reach out for you with the cold, chilling touch of the grave. And if they catch you, your own scream will be the last sound you’ll ever hear…

    

    With no means to support herself, and having discovered she is pregnant, she answers an ad in the Matrimonial Times, hoping for a fresh start for her and her unborn child. Dr. Karl Madden wants a marriage of convenience, where emotions do not come into play. He's looking for a woman to take care of his house and help him in his clinic. Having his heart broken once, Karl does not intend to open his heart to anyone again. When Becky arrives in Wyoming, Karl is shocked to see that she is pregnant and threatens to send her back to Chicago. While a desperate Becky begs for his forgiveness, Karl refuses, although he feels his heart stir each time he looks at her. When tragedy strikes, can Karl forgive Becky before both of their lives are destroyed forever?

    But she is not content. She wants her life to mean something and longs to be accepted for the free-thinking, independent woman she is. When the dashing, adventurer Matt Cowan sweeps her off her feet, she thinks she has finally met her soul mate. However, he’s not the man she thinks he is. After he sails for South America, leaving her behind in England, Anna discovers she’s pregnant. Heartbroken she flees her family home, determined to keep her child’s illegitimacy a secret. He has a few dark secrets of his own… Brenton O’Mara is a strong, independent man who wants to make his own way without relying on his father’s wealth. He comes to Anna’s new home looking for work and convinces the reluctant woman to hire him. But Anna's wary of men, of love, and treats him as nothing more than the penniless labourer she believes him to be. Then, just when Anna seems to feel she is getting on with her new life, and Brenton believes he is breaking down her barriers, the past rears up to confront them and their future hangs in the balance.

    Before their old master died, her family lived in comfortable servants' quarters beside a garden where birdsong echoed through the day. But the new young master turned them out, and now Olive, her parents, and her five-year-old brother Jimmy are struggling to get by. In their cold and desolate tenement, Olive sings to Jimmy about the birds of the garden, trying to cling to hope. Things go from bad to worse when Father succumbs to consumption. Without his job at the docks, the family can't get by. They try to survive on the streets, but it's an impossible task for a destitute mother and her two small children. Olive embarks on a journey of loss and survival in the brutal setting of Victorian London. She has to survive the deaths of loved ones, the appalling conditions in the slums of Old Nichol, and worst of all, the horrors of a match factory and the deadly diseases lurking inside. But one bright thread runs through her story: a kind and handsome boy who gives her bread and whistles just like a nightingale. Might he be the thread by which she can pull herself back up into a better life?