| 
					
					 Contact: 
					info@trencavel.co.uk 
				  New Books 
				 The Fool 
				  The Moon Glass 
				  The Fire Lord Series 
				  A Gothic Tale and other Short Stories 
  
  
 
					
					How to order 
					
					 Credit card ordering now available 
					
					
						The site was last updated:    
						27 November 2024 
						  
						
					 
					
				 | 
				
				   
				  
					 
                        
						
						  
						    |   | 
					       
						  
						    The Fire Lord Series 
                              S.J. Scofield 
                              2024 
                               ISBN 978-1-7384026-1-8 to 978-1-7384026-5-6 
                              £7.99 
                              The paperback and Kindle ebook are available from most Amazon sites around the world including: 
                            UK Site: Amazon UK & US site: Amazon US  | 
						               
						      
						        The Key Bearer 
						          On his 12th birthday Owen Shepherd is given a mysterious  key which unlocks a gateway into a land ruled by elemental Wood magic and tree  spirits. There he meets Finn, a young trainee Wood magician, who is fleeing a  sinister void that is swallowing up the land. 
						            Together they journey through the great forest of Dayah  on a quest to right an ancient wrong and find the lost Sath, elemental essences  that offer the only hope of saving both Dayah and Owen’s own world from a  rising evil.                                 
					               The Moonsinger 
					              Owen Shepherd has returned home with the Wood Sath, but his  triumph is short-lived. Peculiar environmental catastrophes continue to  devastate the Earth and a sinister eye is watching over the Gateway. 
					              His search for the next Sath leads him on a perilous journey into the Realm of  the Water element, a world ruled by magic, illusion and enchantment. 
					               
					              The Midwinter King 
					              Owen returns home with the Water Sath to discover that the  Fire spirits are closing in fast and nowhere is now safe for him. Time is  running out. 
					              Together with his friends Finn, Raya and Arin, he embarks on his most  challenging quest yet, journeying into the Realm of the Earth element, a world  that has fallen under the spell of the Fire Lord and stands on the brink of  destruction.                                                                  
					               The Dreamwalker 
                                    Has Owen’s recovery of the first three Sath been in vain?  Disaster has struck his own home and his secret has been discovered. 
                                    In a desperate bid to escape the Fire spirits, he and his  friends flee into the Air Realm, a world where the boundary between dreams and  reality vanishes and Owen must face his worst nightmare. 
                                  The Fire Lord 
                                    Only one Sath remains to be found. But this is the Fire  Sath, the source of the Fire Lord’s power and his greatest treasure. 
                                    With the net closing in on him, and his own world in  turmoil, Owen’s quest takes him into the heart of his enemy’s domain, the Realm  of Fire, a Land ravaged by malignant magic.  
                                Finally the destinies of Owen and Tamus are united and a story begun in the far  distant past comes full circle.  | 
					           
					         
					           | 
					       
						  
						     | 
						    The Fool 
						       Edited  by Liz Joyce & Tony Scofield  
						      2024 
						      252 pages. ISBN 978-1-7384026-8-7 
						      £8.49  | 
						    The Fool contains twenty-one of the best
						      short stories on the theme of The Fool
						      selected by the judges from a large entry
						      for the 2024 H.G. Wells Short Story
						      Competition. Stories are divided into
						      two groups: authors 21 years of age and
						      under and authors aged 22 years and
						      above and include works in the junior
						      category by Eshaaan Agarwal, Scarlett
						      Bailey, Celia Fournier, Jahdai Grey, M
						      J Harris, Annabelle McGrane, Ellie
						      Mead, Hector Reynoso, Molly Venus
						      and Anna Wang. The senior category
						      comprises works by Lior Blum, Matthew 
						      Dickens, Colin Evans, Jo Holmwood,
						      Robert Maslen, Peter Poole, Keith Porter,
						      Lalitha Ramanathan, Clare Shaw, James
						      Skivington, Ian E Slatter, Rebecca Spillett,
						      Saria Steyl and Emily Waugh. 
						      The paperback and Kindle ebook (£2.49) are available from most Amazon sites around the world including: 
UK Site: Amazon UK & US site: Amazon US 
					         (Use The Fool Joyce' as the search in the Amazon book section)  | 
					       
						  
						     | 
						    The Moon Glass 
						      S.J. Scofield 
						      2024 
						      324 pages. ISBN 978-1-7384026-6-3  
						      £8.99  | 
						    Fourteen-year-old Ceri Morgan's life is
						      shrouded in mystery. With no family and
						      no past, the only certainty she has is that
						      once she lived in a world where magic was
						      real. When a strange letter brings her to
						      a fairy-haunted lake in Snowdonia, she
						      knows she is home. But she still has no
						      answers. 
						      It is only when a mirror – the Moon Glass						      – takes her back through time, that she is
						      able finally to discover the truth about her
						      past. But when she finds herself caught
						      in the middle of a sinister, occult plot, is
						      her knowledge of the future a blessing or
						      a curse? Is she able to change the course
						      of history, and can her actions in the past
						      bring back magic to the modern world? 
						      The paperback and Kindle ebook are available from most Amazon sites around the world including: 
					        UK Site: Amazon UK & US site: Amazon US  | 
					       
						  
						     | 
						    A Gothic Tale and other Short Stories 
						      Alexander Tulloch  
						      2024 
						      149 pages. ISBN 978-1-7384026-7-0.  
						      £7.99  | 
						    Sandor and Janos, a couple of ne'er-do-wells  from a village in Transylvania, always on the lookout  for the main chance, can't resist the promise of enough gold to keep them in  luxury for the rest of their lives and set out to rob the mysterious visitor  who shows up one night in the local inn. But  things do not turn out as they expect. Eupraxia, Dracula's mother, puts in an  appearance to scupper their plans and bring the Gothic tale to a scary  conclusion...or does it? The reader is left wondering if the  would-be robbers have had a lucky escape or if the evil beauty  has other plans for the hapless pair.  
						      Other stories in this volume invite the  reader to question such problems as the senselessness  and hypocrisy of war; the internet used as a time machine and whether or not it just might be possible for us to communicate with  those who have 'passed on.' Or, perhaps more importantly, whether or not those  who have 'passed on' have found a way to communicate with the living. And where  do dreams end and reality begin? On a  more mundane level, themes such as redundancy, keeping fit and the unexpected results of a bad hangover provide fertile ground for the  author to explore and the reader to ponder.  
The paperback and Kindle ebook are available from most Amazon sites around the world including: 
					        UK Site: Amazon UK & US site: Amazon US  | 
					       
						  
						     | 
						    Motion 
						       Edited  by Liz Joyce & Tony Scofield  
						      2023 
						      178 pages. ISBN 978-1-7384026-0-1.  
						      £7.50  | 
						    Motion contains twenty-one of the best
						      short stories on the theme of Motion
						      selected by the judges from a large entry
						      for the 2023 H.G. Wells Short Story
						      Competition. Stories are divided into
						      two groups: authors 21 years of age and
						      under and authors aged 22 years and
						      above and include works in the junior
						      category by Pritha Halder, Yuen Tong
						      Law, Gloria Mesa, Radiyah Nouman,
						      Charlotte Moran, Thalia Peterson,
						      Kantaphat Pinaree, Catherine Saunders, 
						      Tessa Shutter, Sarah-Kate Simons and
						      Allison VanHuysen. The senior category
						      comprises works by Steven Jackson, Anna
						      Linstrum, Ashia Mirza,  Neong Chee Kein (Arthur),
						      Mary Onions, Katie Rizzo, Kerry Ryan,
						      Jarick Weldon and Keltie Zubko. 
						      The paperback and Kindle ebook are available from most Amazon sites around the world including: 
						      UK Site: Amazon UK & US site: Amazon US 
					         (Use 'Motion Joyce' as the search in the Amazon book section)  | 
					       
						  
					         | 
						    Switch 
						       Edited  by Liz Joyce & Tony Scofield  
						      2022 
						      136 pages. ISBN 978-0-9955730-9-3.  
						      £5.49  | 
						    Switch contains thirteen of the best 
						      short stories on the theme of Switch 
						      selected by the judges from a large entry 
						      for the 2022 H.G. Wells Short Story 
						      Competition. Stories are divided into two 
						      groups: authors 21 years of age and under 
						      and authors aged 22 years and above 
						      and include works by Kim A Bigelow, 
						      Amanda D'Errico, Sasha Gill, David 
						      McVey, Stephen O'Reilly, Adrian Paul, 
						      Susannah Rickards, Jamie Littlewood, 
						      Katie Farrell, Ryan Lee, Ginny Martin, 
						      Amelie Roscoe and Adriana Tihan. 
						      The paperback and Kindle ebook are available from most Amazon sites including: 
					        UK Site: Amazon.co.uk     US site: Amazon.com   
					        and more. (Use 'Switch Joyce' as the search in the Amazon book section)  | 
					       
						  
						     | 
						    Mask 
						       Edited  by Liz Joyce & Tony Scofield  
						      2021 
						      232 pages. ISBN 978-0-9955730-8-6.  
						      £8.49  | 
						    Mask contains twenty-one of the best short 
						      stories on the theme of 'Mask' selected by 
						      the judges from a large entry for the 2021 
						      H.G. Wells Short Story Competition. 
						      Stories are divided into two groups: 
						      authors 21 years of age and under and
						      authors aged 22 years and above and
						      include works by Jessica Brien, Clara
						      Chiu, Sophia Felsinger, Sarah Holm,
						      Mia Ramage, Sumedha Sengupta, Sarah-Kate Simons, Nathan Steward, Weiyen
						      Tan, Houssam Alissa, Fija Callaghan,
						      Peter Collins, Simha Haddad, Katherine
						      Haynes, E. S. Heffernan, Tony Hunter-Craig, Bethany Ridley-Duff, Lee Stoddart,
						      Sarah Townend, Dan Vanvik and 
						      Stephen Webb. 
						      Order this book 
						      Only UK orders are accepted from this site. To order from anywhere else in the world please use amazon.co.uk:  Maskpbk 
Also available soon as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
					       
							
							   | 
							  Vision 
							     Edited  by Liz Joyce & Tony Scofield  
							    2020 
							    232 pages. ISBN 978-0-9955730-7-9.  
							    £7.99  | 
							  Vision contains twenty of the best short 
							    stories on the theme of Vision selected by 
							    the judges from a large entry for the 2020 
							    H.G. Wells Short Story Competition. 
							    Stories are divided into two groups: 
							    authors 21 years of age and under and
							    authors aged 22 years and above and
							    include works by Priyadarshini Barua,
							    Utshaa Basu, Isabel Burns, Hannah
							    Jennison, Tesni Penney, Tabitha Rubens,
							    Dewi Schmidt, Matilda Stepek, Lucy
							    Thynne, Gemma Al-Khayat, Elou Carroll,
							    Ian Critchley, Matthew Dickens, Alwin
							    George V, Newton Grange, Rhiannon
							    Lewis, Susannah Rickards, Paul Sherman,
							    Francine van den Berg and Ali Wilding. 
							    Order this book 
						      Also available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  The Colours of Virtue 
							     Elizabeth Medler 
							    2020 
							    96 pages. ISBN 978-0-9955730-6-2.  
							    £7.99  | 
							  This book sketches some of the qualities and virtues we all need for living
							    life well and coming closer to our own Self, whose raiment is pure white and
							    yet contains all the colours of the rainbow. Each offering is accompanied
							    by a meditation which  hopefully will go some way towards unfolding its
							    significance and make it relevant to the reader. Rather than being read as a book
							    from beginning to end in linear form, you can dip into it as often as
							    you like and let the page fall where it will. 
							    Order this book 
							    It is also available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  Time 
							     Edited  by Liz Joyce, Tony Scofield & Lee Stoddart 
							    2019 
							    184 pages. ISBN 978-0-9955730-5-5.  
							    £7.99  | 
							  Time contains twenty of the best short stories on the  theme of Time selected by the judges from a large entry for the 2019 H.G.  Wells Short Story Competition. Stories are divided into two groups: authors 21  years of age and under and authors aged 22 years and above and include works by  Kirsty Balfour, Natalie 
							    Boal, Hiya Chowdhury, Sinéad Donaghy,
							    James Huang, Meg Lintern, Laura Maria
							    Steel Pascual, Bethany Ridley-Duff,
							    Shelby de Rond, Krystal Song, Lee Amoss,
							    Charlotte Bracey, David Bradley, Frances
							    Brindle, Cheryl Buck, Lesley Bungay,
							    Beverley Haddon, Matthew McDonald,
							    Saritha Rao Rayachoti and Fiona Salter. 
							    Order this book 
						      Also available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  Peace 
							     Edited  by Charles Bain Smith 
							    2018 
							    192 pages. ISBN 978-0-9955730-4-8.  
							    £7.99  | 
							  Peace contains nineteen of the best short stories on the  theme of Peace selected by the judges from a large entry for the 2018 H.G.  Wells Short Story Competition. Stories are divided into two groups: authors 21  years of age and under and authors aged 22 years and above and include works by  Martha Boyd, Hannah Fagan, Martha Grogan, Marcus McCabe, Jake Muttitt, Bethany  Ridley-Duff, Hope Thompson, Rere Ukponu, Abaan Zaidi, Rosie Andrews, Jake  Blandford, A V Bruce, Zachary Godin, Bobbie Allen, Mary Onions, Wendy Riley,  Nicola Thompson and Diane Wisdom. 
OUT OF PRINT 
						      Also available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  Draw up a Chair 
							     Edited & compiled by Elizabeth Medler 
							    2018 
							    94 pages. ISBN 978-0-9955730-3-1.  
							    £7.99  | 
							  These  short stories show that in times of great need, we are supported. This support comes in many ways - through  mentors, family, friends, strangers and sometimes from unseen Guardian Angels. These radiant beings drop shining pearls  into the pool of our minds, prompting us to act or refrain from acting.  Sometimes we are guided to say or do things  which may seem illogical at the time but, with hindsight, prove to be just the  right thing. Again we may have been  mulling over a thorny problem. These stories and accompanying  exercises will help you to relish the joy of living. 
OUT OF PRINT 
Also available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  The Quarry 
							    David Unsworth 
							    2018 
							    44 pages. ISBN 978-0-9955730-2-4.  
							    £4.99  | 
							  Curated over many years, 'The Quarry' explores the construction of identity through a deeply emotive, poetic collection. Dream-like and visceral, this personal work is built on life's waterways, a raging confluence of currents, stretching away into the future, resolved, and their directions chosen. 
							    Order this book  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  Light 
                                Edited by Charles Bain Smith 
                                2017 
                                181 pages. ISBN 978-0-9955730-1-7.  
                              £7.00  | 
							  Light contains twenty of the best short stories on the theme of Light selected by the judges from a large entry for the 2017 H.G. Wells Short Story Competition. Stories are divided into two groups: authors 21 years of age and under and authors aged 22 years and above and include works by Hazel Atkinson, Mina Bixley, Malak Elsouri, Grace Howarth, Kaylene Jackmore, Francesca Kennedy, Elizabeth Kuiper, Laura Steel Pascual, Sithara Ranasinghe, Ashira Shirali, Alex Reece Abbott, Dianne Bown-Wilson, 
						      D R D Bruton, Mark Howard, Anthony Howcroft, Robin Jones, Sally Lane, Anne Petrie, Louise Rimmer 
						      Order this book 
						      Also available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  
							    Casa da Branca 
							    By Rosie Vidovix 
							    2017 
							    209 pages. ISBN 978-0-9955730-0-0.  
							    £7.99 
							      | 
							  Desperate circumstances force Branquinha, a sensitive, intelligent and fun-loving girl, to work in a brothel in a gold-mining village deep in the Amazon rainforest. 
							    Far from her beloved mother, life is made bearable for her by the company of the other women in the house, the friendship of Zulmira, the kindly cook, and gay bartender, Murilo, but there is also the sadness lurking in the women's personal lives, the violence which can erupt at any moment, and, of course, the men. 
							     How will Branquinha survive in one of the most dangerous and inhospitable places in Brazil? 
							    
							      Based on real stories, Casa da Branca gives an account of life in a land where social conventions are of no significance and people make their own rules. 
Available as a Kindle download from Amazon 
						      Order this book  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  Space 
							    Edited by Charles Bain Smith 
							    2016 
							    184 pages. ISBN 978-0-9572485-9-5.  
							    £7.99  | 
							  Space contains twenty of the best short stories on the theme of Space selected by the judges from a large entry for the 2016 H.G. Wells Short Story Competition. Stories are divided into two groups: authors 21 years of age and under and authors aged 22 years and above and include works by Holly Cartwright, Caitlin Evans, Grace Haddon, Eve Lytollis, Charlotte Mullen, Laura Steel Pascual, Alice Sargent, Allison Stevick, Emma Strutt, Jake Trimmer, Victoria Wang, Hilary Dean, Wei-Li Chin, DJ Dingham, Kate L. Jefford, David Norman, Anne Petrie, Michele Sheldon and Diane Wisdom. 
							    Order this book 
							    Available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  
							    Born of the Island and Other Sea Stories 
							    Edited by Rosie Unsworth 
							    2012 
							    246 pages. ISBN 978-0-9572485-1-9.  
							    £7.99   | 
							  Born of the Island  and Other Sea Stories contains twenty-two of the best short  stories on the theme of The Sea selected by the judges from a large  entry for the 2012 H.G. Wells Short Story Competition. Stories are divided into  two groups: authors under the age of twenty-six and authors twenty-six years of  age and over, and include works by Angus Nesbit, Anastasia Bow-Bertrand, Sinéad  Stoddart, Akiho Schilz, Sophie Lister, William Jarrett, Holly Ice, Daisy-Mae  Perkins, Karl Mercer, Michele Sheldon, David Griffin, David Shonfield, Mike  Umbers, Pat Ashford, Hummel C. Addams, Mel Fawcet, Don Nixon, Andrew  Campbell-Kearsey, Fabian Acker, Rik Thomas and Anthony Hulse. 
							    OUT OF PRINT 
						      Available as a Kindle download from Amazon 
						         | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  Flight 
                                Edited by Rosie Vidovix Unsworth 
                                2013 
                                196 pages. ISBN 978-0-9572485-3-3.  
                              £7.99  | 
							  Flight contains twenty-one of the best short stories on the theme of Flight 
							    selected by the judges from a large entry 
							    for the 2013 H.G. Wells Short Story 
							    Competition. Stories are divided into 
							    two groups: authors under the age of 20 
							    and authors aged 20 years and above and 
							    include works by Sithara Ranasinghe, 
							    Matthew Thurgood, Lottie Pyper, 
							    Benjamin R. Davies, Jonathan Wood, 
							    Rebecca Hamilton, Jasmine Ayoubi, 
							    Joshua Lambert, Edward Butterfield, 
							    Emma Hollands, Christopher Campbell, 
							    Sheila Liggett, Diane Wisdom, K.
							    Lockwood Jefford, Paul Burns, Cathy 
							    Lennon, Jade Moulds, Sue Healy, Steven 
							    M. Dodd, Lee Stoddart and Hermione 
						      Laake. 
						      Order this book 
						      Available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  Financial Crisis - The Black UMP 
							    Edward Creto 
							    2014 
							    138 pages. ISBN 978-0-9572485-4-0.  
							    £6.99  | 
							  There will always be financial crises. There is an infinite field of potential crises in which we have a camp surrounded by a fence. A new crisis sometimes gets into the camp so we chuck it out and repair the fence. If we discarded money and the financial system then we would have no financial crises but we would find ourselves encamped in a different field surrounded by different problems. These fields are just life seen from different angles and problems cannot be resolved until we all agree what the problems are. 
							    This is about the crises in the camp from 2007 onwards including the Subprime Crisis, the Eurozone Crisis, and unconventional monetary/fiscal responses. It is preceded by some essential background. I have tried hard to make it as concise, clear and simple as possible. It is for anybody interested in the subject and with the ability (with a little effort) to understand it. 
							    Unconventional Monetary Policy (UMP) refers to new, untested policies introduced by Central Banks and governments to stabilise and manage the financial sector and the economy during the crisis. It is not clear how to exit UMP. We may be inside an Unconventional Monetary Policy black hole – a black UMP. 
							    This is the second expanded and revised edition of The Black UMP. 
						      Order this book 
						      Available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  Fortune 
                                Edited by Liz Joyce 
                                2014 
                                192 pages. ISBN 978-0-9572485-5-7.  
                              £7.50  | 
							  Fortune contains twenty of the best
							    short stories on the theme of Fortune							    selected by the judges from a large entry
							    for the 2014 H.G. Wells Short Story
							    Competition. Stories are divided into
							    two groups: authors 21 years of age
							    and under and authors aged 22 years
							    and above and include works by Esther
							    M. White, Sithara Ranasinghe, Gemma
							    Talbot, Alexandra Jessop, Will Jarrett,
							    John Noden, Rosie Carter, C. Jay Divine,
							    Gabrielle Corry-Mead, K. Lockwood
							    Jefford, Emma Norry, Adam Colton,
							    Catherine Higgins-Moore, Craig Smith,
							    Giselle Evans, Fabian Acker, Amy Licence,
							    Alex Reece Abbott, Ikhtisad Ahmed and
							    Melanie Whipman 
                                Order this book 
                              Available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							 
						      
						         							    
						       | 
							  We Simply Didn't Know What it Would be Like 
                                An Anthology by the Children of Folkestone and Beyond 
                                2015 
                                74 pages. ISBN 978-0-9572485-7-1.  
                              £5.00  | 
							  The children of Folkestone schools and beyond have produced, letters, poems, diaries, paintings and short stories to illustrate the role of women in the First World War. The project used the material to produce a show at St Mary and St Eanswythe Church in Folkestone. Proceeds from the sale of the book will go the church fund. 
						      Order this book  | 
						   
							
							  
							      
						         							    							     | 
							  Class 
							    Edited by Liz Joyce 
							    2015 
							    286 pages. ISBN 978-0-9572485-8-8.  
							    £8.50  | 
							  Class contains twenty six of the best short stories on the theme of Class selected by the judges from a large entry for the 2015 H.G. Wells Short Story Competition. Stories are divided into two groups: authors 21 years of age and under and authors aged 22 years and above and include works by Georgia Bozianu, William Carroll, Esmé Ford, Holly Friend, Lowri Mathias, Marcus McCabe, Julia Mun, Lauren Ross, Molly Watkins, Cassandra Yong, Dorothy Bruce, Eve Chancellor, Catherine Higgins-Moore, Anne O'Brien, Anne Padley, Daniel Penfold, Thomas Pitts, Auriel Roe, Eleanor Ross, Dave Shonfield, Anstey Spraggan, Lee Stoddart, Thomas Wadsworth, Melanie Whipman and S. Zatland 
							    Order this book 
						      Available as a Kindle download from Amazon  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  
							    Glebeings End 
							    By Olivia Minerva 
							    2012 
							    229 pages. ISBN 978-0-9572485-0-2.  
							    £7.95 
							      | 
							  "Inspector Hoskins says it's a genuine medieval settlement!" Police Constable Avril Lee couldn't contain her awe. "You know," she continued, marvelling volubly, "I had never before actually seen Glebeings End; in fact, until that big fire, when the Mainwaring house burned down, I never even knew this place existed! Then Glebe Close got built where the old house was... Ten houses where one used to be, we heard it was… And now all this other stuff has happened!" She paused a moment, then added, almost accusingly, "But before the upset and everything, you must have been tucked away here for hundreds of years!" 
							     
							    To Marlys, it sometimes felt that way. 
							     
							    As she put it to Myrtle, over the teacups, "We go for decades without a ripple of scandal or disquietboring each other to deathand then, suddenly, Doreen collapses and dies at her front gate, the dogs are found slaughtered, George disappears with a woman in a new Subaru and we get two most ghastly murders!" 
							     
							    Myrtle's riposte "Doreen could not help dying" was probably true, as far as it went... 
							    Available as a Kindle download from Amazon 
							    Order this book  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  Paddlesworth Court Farm 
							    M.J. Cross 
							    2016 
							    182 pages.  
							    £8.99  | 
							  Paddlesworth Court Farm 1866-1966. A History of the Cross Family and Farm Diaries 
							    The story of Paddlesworth Court Farm and the Cross family who 
							    farmed it for over 100 years from 1866. Farm diaries covering 
							    the years 1927 to 1966 give a detailed account of the changes 
							    in agricultural practice following the Second World War, the decline 
							    in pastoral farming (the selling of all pigs and eventually of 
							    the dairy herd but not the sheep) and the increasing cultivation
							    of cereal crops brought about by social, political and economic 
							    forces. 
							    Available from the author. Email for ordering details: info@trencavel.co.uk  | 
						   
							
							   | 
							  Buttoned-up Shapes 
							    Poems by George Tardios 
							    2015 
							    84 pages. ISBN 978-0-9572485-6-4.  
						      £7.99  | 
							  George Tardios vividly portrays Cypriot characters and ancestors
							    in this image-filled portrait of his mother's village, as it used to be. 
							    The poems gradually become autobiographical as they move to
							    England, where his mother emigrated in 1935. 
							    George Tardios was Director of Totleigh Barton, the Arvon Foundation's first residential creative writing centre in Devon.						        Has had poems in six 'PEN/Arts Council Anthologies' published by Hutchinson; the 'Puffin Book of Salt Sea Verse' edited by Charles Causley; 'The Way To Write', J. Moat & J. Fairfax (Elm Tree Books); 'English For Me', Eric Boagey (University Tutorial Press); 'Apple Fire', and 'On Common Ground', Jill Pirrie (Bloodaxe Books, and WWF). 
							      A collection of poems, 'BullSong' was published by Charlotte Press. Recently, poems in 'Cadences' (European University of Cyprus), and 'The London Magazine'. 
							      Participated in 'Poets in Schools' scheme and tutored creative writing courses for the Arvon Foundation. 
							      Organised the first 'National Poetry Competition' for the Poetry Society at Earl's Court, and for the Arvon Foundation. Judged the BBC2 'South Bank Show' Poetry Competition. 
						      Order this book  | 
						   
							
							  |   | 
							    | 
							  Review by George Lucas in London Grip Poetry Review 
                                George Tardios’s Buttoned-Up Shapes has an untroubled, if never bland, relish for the earthly. A   Greek-Cypriot by birth, Tardios uses his poems to record and often   celebrate village and family life in a culture from which, though he now   lives in London, still animates his memories. Photographs of local   scenes and people, together with substantial explanatory end-notes,   plump out the multi-dimensionality of Tardios’s collection. Like so much   Greek art, like so much Greek experience, Buttoned-Up Shapes comes across as a blend of the comic, the tragic, and the fatalistic. If   there are moments when Woods’ poems summon up the shade of Cavafy,   Tardios’s work, in powerful comparison, is reminiscent of Kazantzakis,   of the Cretan’s bare-chested, unflinching acceptance of all that happens   to happen. 
                                And   yet the word “acceptance” is too passive, too genteel even, to do   justice to the full-throated note that Tardios at his best, or most   characteristic, habitually sounds. Reading his work you’re aware of how judicious, how risk-free, much Anglo-phone writing by comparison seems. 
                                The sea rang   
                                round my seven white years.   
                                I listened to the horizon   
                                Careful  To catch Aphrodite’s song.   
                                Perhaps some miracle                            
                                (“Intitiation at Paphos.”)      
                                It isn’t fair, you want to mutter. We can’t listen to Aphrodite’s song. It isn’t ours to hear. Still, even Greek   poets have to know how to address the history with which they’ve been as   much burdened as blessed. Village life in particular can be oppressive   and Tardios refuses to sentimentalise. Hence his notating the casual or   anyway tolerated cruelty to animals; hence, too, his acknowledgement of   how rejection inevitably comes to all who fall foul of convention, of   rules they can do nothing to follow. 
                                Elders blamed his parents   
                                Mother dead  Father in the hills with sheep ….     
                                As locals foretold he was expelled from school. 
                                The whole village crossed to the other side.                                         
                                (“Swollen River”).      
                                I   doubt that any one of us born into Northern European cultures can ever   fully comprehend the near-laconic fatalism of these unyielding,   implacable lines. 
                                It   would, however, be quite wrong to give the impression that this   collection is dominated by failure, let alone defeat. “And still the   grass eternal springs.” John Clare’s great assertion speaks from and to a   readiness to more than endure which, though most recognisable perhaps   in the long, trampled-on history of peasantry, is discoverable   elsewhere. Hence, Tardios’s long poem “Ioulia and Francos”, which   celebrates, or anyway attests to, an indomitable persistence of two   lovers against the rebuffs they have to endure. And another long poem,   “So I’m Told”, perhaps the finest in the collection, is vivid with the   particularities of lives remembered, the rhythmic fluency of its   narration giving it a strength beyond the merely notational: 
                                Under this shivering light, earth exhales night-time heat.   
                                Herbal warmth enfolds us both like wings   
                                Pilgrims to a sun-scorched land asleep   
                                In the middle-sea of middle-earth –   
                                Rancid goats, hiccupping donkeys, potent cocks   
                                Beds laid on flat mud-roots --   
                                Pointing defiant fingers at the Muslim coast     
                                Morning, street-sellers chant their wares,   
                                An isle of wonders ripe with noises.  
                              This, and other poems in Buttoned-Up Shapes,   are, in their atmospheric density, reminiscent of the prose tales of   the nineteenth-century master, Alexandros Papadiamantis, bringing onto   the page the vivid quality of Greek island life, its rough, grainy   texture, though Tardios, perhaps by virtue of writing in verse, knows   better than did Papadiamantis where to let well alone, where to stop.   Great stuff.   | 
						   
							
							  |   | 
							    | 
							  Trencavel Press Home Page | 
						   
						 
						
						
						        |