The Parlus

Two sailors trapped on the ice; a Madonna with acne; the only woman in the world; a down and out in whose brain innocent victims scream to be released. Cockroaches as art. Life, death by drowning and harsh reality. Accounts of mystery, tales of eating and drinking, all written in Mike Thomas's inimitable style.

Twist and Shout

When his girlfriend leaves him and goes to live in Australia with another man, all entomologist Jack Matheson wants to do is wallow in self pity. However his research into a risk-free, natural but extremely viable and highly commercial cure for drug addiction puts him directly in the line of fire of one of the USA's biggest pharma companies, a Kosovan drug cartel, a small but radical arm of American creationism and a surfer dude geneticist, all of whom are seeking to capitalise on Jack's research. Then of course there's Jack's brother, Dave. The real star of this black comedy.

The Distance of Lilies

Young Arthur Butler existed in his own time until at the age of nineteen during the Battle of the Marne in 1918 his heart stopped beating, his blood ceased to flow and he died. He never came home. He lay where he fell at the foot of a narrow elongated vineyard until in 2013 he was given a second chance. An opportunity to make something of himself, whether good or bad. A chance to be himself wherever and however he wished.

The Bonnard Weekend

A group of friends meet up again

after twenty years, drawn like moths

to the flames of their past. When they

meet, their fully grown personalities

are revealed. Over the intervening

years the unfortunate have been

blessed, the spiritual have become

profane and the oh so clever have

become clueless and foolhardy.

Even beauty has been transformed.

Only one of the friends remains

the same.

Voices in a cold room

collected poems

Danny's Vineyard

Danny Proctor never actually met his father. In fact Danny had only ever seen one photograph of him. Thirty years down the line Danny receives an old cassette tape in the post. On the tape his long dead father warns him about two men who played a large part in his downfall. The disturbing thing is that by the time Danny listens to the tape, both men are already among his closest friends.

The Defining Moment

In 2000 Paul Rapson leaves London for California in search of a girl he spent thirty minutes talking to in a Portuguese street over twenty-five years ago. He discovers that the girl, Connie, disappeared from the face of the earth in

1982, when she too realised that she had no choice but to embark on a mission to find the man she'd met briefly many years before.

Inevitably, Paul and Connie's paths cross in this pyschological tale of love, confusion and death.

The Grief Tourist

Set against a rewilding scheme to reintroduce wolves into Scotland, The Grief Tourist reinvents a traditional fairy story, reversing the roles and setting loose a terrifyingly beautiful young woman onto the vulnerable and the innocent. Chrissie is a sexual predator, a vampiric creature, whose consolation and arousal can only be attained from the anguish of others. Eventually, Chrissie's pursuit of her cravings leads her to take matters into her own hands and rather than feed on the distress of strangers, she embarks on the creation of her own grief.

Uppity Girls Among Savages

Audrey Sebbege is the direct descendant of the slaves who worked on the Sebbege plantation at River Run, Stonewater, Mississippi. Fascinated by her past, she traces her ancestry on her father´s side back to the small village in Southern England from where his descendants emigrated in the 17th century. She pays them a visit. On her trip, she meets her future husband and several of her father´s distant family, who are not exactly pleased to see her. Against the backdrop of village prejudice and ignorance, Audrey struggles to confront and overcome the same attitudes that prevailed in her ancestors´ lives on the Sebbage plantation.