The Chaplain (Book 5 of the Alford Saga)

The Chaplain is the fifth book of The Alford Saga, following The DeserterThe SurvivorThe Pioneer, and The Pilgrim.

The Prime Minister gives permission for John Alford (The Pilgrim) to board a tramp steamer crammed with a thousand young enlistees bound for adventure in the Boer War. They steam across a stormy Atlantic into a year of dusty, disease-ridden battles in South Africa — the first engagement by Canadian Forces on foreign soil. He and his courageous comrades endure freezing night-long marches and thirst-ridden days as they mount dangerous attacks on Boer commandoes under a blazing sun, turning the tide of war in the great battle of Paardeberg Drift. He falls in love, but as Chaplain, he must first comfort the dying, tend wounded friends, and with his troops assault the impregnable Thaba ‘Nchu, the Black Mountain. This enthralling tale of bravery and self-sacrifice is the first romantic adventure novel set in the Boer War for over a hundred years.

The Edge of Eden

Life starts to unravel for Penelope when her husband, Rupert, drags their family to the remote Seychelles islands for an exotic diplomatic job in 1960. While Penelope pines for London, Rupert and their two daughters fall in love with this tropical paradise. The children run barefoot on the beach and become enraptured by the ancient magic, or grigri, that pervades this lush colonial outpost. Rupert, meanwhile, succumbs to the island’s other lures when a Seychelloise beauty sets her sights—and casts her spells—on him.

But Penelope and her daughter Zara won’t go down without a fight. In a desperate attempt to hold the family together, they each turn secretly to the local witchcraft with devastating results. Ultimately, Penelope and her family suffer unimaginable consequences that change their lives forever.

Benedict’s acerbic wit and evocative descriptions serve up a page-turner brimming with jealousy, sex, and intrigue in this ominous Eden.

Endogamy Blues

The neo-fascist armies of the Liberator have swept across the Americas like a plague. Montreal is in flames, and the front is less than a kilometre away.

Seventeen year-old Private Joanie Morgernstern can expect no mercy from the victors. As a Canadian soldier, an Augmented Human and a Jew, she is a blood enemy to the Liberator three times over. Aircraftman Michael Cross, 16, a technician in the Air Force of the Iroquois Six Nations, is on the same hitlist. Their fanatically racist enemies will show them no quarter and no mercy.

Swept up in Canada’s last, desperate attempt to stave off defeat, Joanie and Mike expect nothing but death. Instead, they find each other.

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An Occupation of Angels

After Archangels materialise over the bloodbaths of WWII, they take up residence in most of the world’s major cities. But what would happen if, more than quarter of a century later, something somehow managed to kill these supreme beings? Killarney knows and, as an agent working for the Bureau, a British agency that’s so secret it doesn’t officially exist, she finds herself embroiled in the consequences as, one by one, the Archangels die.

Assigned to trace a missing cryptographer thought to have information on the murders, she travels from England, through France, heading for the frozen wastes of the USSR. But there’s an unknown third party intent on stopping her, and there’s God, who also has an agenda. Not knowing who is friend and who is foe, and with only a brief glimpse of a swastika on angel wings as solid information, Killarney struggles to remain alive long enough to glean sufficient information to put together the pieces of the puzzle and complete what is, without them, an impossible mission.

The Silence of Trees

In Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, Nadya Lysenko has built her life on a foundation of secrets. When she was sixteen, Nadya snuck out of her house in Western Ukraine to meet a fortuneteller in the woods. She never expected it to be the last time she would see her family. Decades later, Nadya continues to be haunted by the death of her parents and sisters. The myths and magic of her childhood are still a part of her reality: dreams unite friends across time and space, house spirits misplace keys and glasses, and a fortuneteller’s cards predict the future. Nadya’s beloved dead insist on being heard through dreams and whispers in the night. They want the truth to come out. Nadya needs to face her past and confront the secrets she buried. Too often the women of history have been silenced, but their stories have power-to reveal, to teach, and to transform. This is one such story.