Find out what happens when the legends from the ancient world collide with the chaos of eighteenth century India?

For some war is an inspiring, uplifting, and a liberating occurrence.  Such is the case of Emil Dorfmeister.  Abandon without a name to the St. Katherine Order in Posen, Dorfmeister received an excellent education but, because he was an orphan, no employment opportunities.  He left the sisters' care at an early age to wander from one job to the next picking up experiences and, when working in the coal mines of Silesia, Russian as a second language.  When the Great War started, he volunteered and fought for three years in the trenches of France gaining a new talent as a machine gun sharpshooter.  But his real asset was in knowing Russian.  He was culled from a pillbox crew and sent to Ukraine as part of an occupation force which had transcended its original purpose as a restorer of the Ukrainian government to a pillaging horde that indiscriminately seized Ukrainian food to ship back to Germany.  Into his life came Tatianna Brendt, the daughter of German parents living along the Volga.  Before the Revolution, Brendt had received an education at the Women's Institute in Kiev and found work with a legal firm in Kharkov.  The Revolution destroyed the Tsarist legal system putting her out of a job but Brendt took an active part in furthering women's rights in the Bolshevik party.  She was zealous and soon drew the envy and ridicule of those who were not comfortable with a woman having so much influence.  She was forced out of her apartment due to rumors of promiscuous behaviors, fired from her job as an influencer, and relegated to living on the Kharkov streets with only the clothes on her back in February.  Then an opportunity came her way.  Because she could read and write Russian and German, the new secret police, the CHEKA, recruited her to spy for them in Ukraine.  She was dressed up and left to find someone she could attach herself to among the German occupation force.  She found that someone in Emil Dorfmeister.

     Warm, well-clothed, well fed, and safe, Brendt began her spying career with the help of Dorfmeister who had become fed-up with the ruthlessness of his superiors in looting Ukrainian resources.  It soon came to pass that efforts to collect grain and other food supplies in his area of administration to send back to Germany came to naught and armed resistance to collection caravans increased.  Before Dorfmeister's superiors could launch an investigation, the war ended and the Germans were forced to evacuate Ukraine.  Dorfmeister's last acts as an administrator were to send Brendt north while he boarded a train to Germany.  Brendt succeeded in gaining Bolshevik Russia but the part of the train that Dorfmeister was in was blown up by inept Bolshevik partisans.  The train, relatively unharmed, continued its journey leaving Dorfmeister behind to either walk out of Russia or join the partisans to stay alive.  He chose to use his skill as a machine gunner with the partisans.  Brendt went on to spy on Leon Trotsky and the antirevolutionary General Wrangel for the CHEKA.  Dorfmeister, in his turn, joined Wrangel's army after being captured and given a choice of join or be executed.

     Brendt and Dorfmeister came within a hair's breathe of meeting again and again.  Brendt secretly contributed to Dorfmeister's recovery from wounds in Simferopol and nearly came to a reunion in Constantinople after the evacuation of Wrangel's army from the Crimea.  Dorfmeister was never aware of who his benefactor was and as a result fled Constantinople to take a job of training the pan-Moslem army of Enver Pasha in Turkestan.

     The final acts of the story play out in Afghanistan and the new kingdom of Yugoslavia.  Both paths are tainted by the past.    

Angel of Aleppo is a story of the Armenian Genocide, including the little-known link between the Genocide and the WW1 Anzac experience. It highlights the cruelty of the Ottoman Young Turks towards their Armenian citizens, but it is ultimately about faith and love and the redemptive power of forgiveness.

Angel of Aleppo is set from 1915 – 1919 in Anatolia (southern modern-day Turkey), Aleppo and the Mesopotamian desert, then to Beirut in 1923, and plays out in Adelaide, South Australia, from 1927 - 1966.

In May 1915, Anoush, a sixteen-year-old Armenian girl, and fellow villagers are evicted from their Anatolian village by Ottoman soldiers commanded by Ibrahim bey, a young local warlord who is obsessed by her beauty. Anoush survives, but can her heart survive, after her mother is shot before her eyes?

A massive column of evictees - women, children and old men - endure monstrous cruelties on the infamous Death Marches as they are driven south via Aleppo to the Mesopotamian desert.

Anoush meets elderly priest Apraham, and with sister Covinar, friends and Krikor, her first love, she escapes the caravan and heads west to the mountain near the Mediterranean called Musa Ler. But Ibrahim's reward offer leads to her capture and detention in Aleppo.

Aided by German medical orderly Armin Wegner*, she escapes again, learns to nurse and begins helping diseased, starving Armenians. Determined to be the woman her mother raised her to be, Anoush becomes known as the Angel of Aleppo, her courage and resolution an inspiration.

She is forced to take her chances in the Mesopotamian desert, she loses Krikor, and is captured by Ibrahim bey, but is rescued by Trooper Tom Mills of the Australian Light Horse.

By 1923, Anoush is nursing at the Australasian Orphanage at Antilyas, Beirut. She meets the eminent South Australian humanitarian Reverend James Cresswell*, who helps her find and ultimately marry Tom Mills. Over the years she remains close to Reverend Cresswell but feels cut off from her past.

Years pass; Anoush is widowed and alone. She visits the Adelaide War Memorial on the Genocide's 50^th anniversary and meets former Ottoman soldier, Mehmet. Can she forgive oppressors of the innocent?

Angel of Aleppo is an expose of injustice, a thriller, a snapshot of a dark moment in history, but it is ultimately a story about the truth and the healing power of love.

*Wegner and Cresswell are actual historical figures. US Ottoman ambassador Henry Morgenthau Jr and 28^th US President Woodrow Wilson make cameo appearances as well.

Do you want to know a secret?

Beneath the very ground on which you walk and beyond the stars above your head, are more worlds than you could ever dream of. There are monsters. Be afraid. Magic, wielded by witches and sorcerers. Epic adventures in worlds far across the ocean. And fearsome weapons which threaten to destroy everything.

Jimmy Crikey is a brave soul who faces some pretty scary challenges. Solving mysteries and averting mayhem, his incredible courage allows him to free up his abilities to shine and rise above every challenge in his path, on his way to discovering why he looks so very strange.

With a bright red mop of unruly hair, big blue eyes, a small snub nose, pointed ears and enormous feet, poor Jimmy is ridiculed by the neighbourhood children and runs away in search of a world where he fits in. Following a midnight flight through the forest, he stumbles into a lost, underground world called Roombelow and magic, adventure, danger and excitement await.

From the little lady who lives at the bottom of a well, a starship that wants to take him home, trolls, little people, traders and diamonite stealers to water sprites, witches, helpful dolphins, and interplanetary warfare, Jimmy learns the biggest lessons of his life.

Thirteen-year-old Lynne watched her parents wrestle with the fact that their newborn baby Bruce, her new brother, had been born with Down syndrome. Over the years, Lynne struggled to ensure that Bruce would be included as part of the family and vowed to protect him from a young age, while also making sure that her nine-year-old brother, David, was not also left behind amidst the chaos. As time passed and Lynne went off to college, she learned that her baby brother was still not safe from being given away.

 

This is the story of Bruce, and the love he inspired in Lynne to fight for the unity of her family. Lynne, David, and Bruce maneuvered the trials of life together, thus cementing their unwavering commitment to each other as siblings. By turns funny and heartbreaking, Listen to Me is a story about being brave, finding your voice, and becoming not who you thought you were, but who you were meant to be all along.

 

The mother/daughter relationship is one of the strongest bonds between two people. This book offers some insight into the complicated and dynamic relationship of adult daughters and their aging mothers. Advice, solutions, comments and humor surrounding this relationship are offered by friends as well as strangers. "The relationship between parents and children, but especially between mothers and daughters is tremendously powerful, scarcely to be comprehended in any rational way."~~ Joyce Carol Oates

After being falsely accused of murdering his ex-wife, Trace O'Reilly is sentenced to death by lethal injection. Five years later, moments before he is to receive the final dose of drugs which will end his life, he receives a pardon. Given a new lease on life, Trace sets out to find the real murder. In the process, however, he not only is reacquainted with his daughter but must save her from the one person who knows the truth.

It's 1984 and all Bud Fisher wants to do is find a place to live in Madison Louisiana. With his dog Badger, they come across a beautiful old mansion that was converted into apartments.

Something should have felt odd when he discovers nobody lives in the apartments. To make matters worse, the owner is reluctant to let him rent one. Eventually he negotiates an apartment in the historic old house, but soon finds he's not quite as alone as he thought. What ghostly secret has the owner failed to share?

It's up to Bud to unravel the mysteries of the upstairs apartments, but is he really ready to find out the truth?

From the tales of Orenda. Book Two:

After a long winter encampment, Orenda, Nazshoni, Kanuna and Onsi cross the Mississippi river and venture west. Their destination is far and Orenda intends to move the small group of warriors with haste in the hope of reaching an embattled tribe far to the west of the great river.

The plan begins to unravel when they come across a ghost village and then dire forebodings from an old Shaman. There is a shape-shifter in the area and she has been causing much destruction and despair. Orenda attempts to go around the troubled area as he feels tomahawks and arrows are no match against magic. But the Deer Woman is already aware of the warrior's presence in her territory.

If you enjoyed The Bitter Harvest, you'll not want to miss the continuing adventures of Orenda and his small group of heroes.

For each of us, life is often a MYSTERY.

We try and make sense of where we come from, we grapple with the problem of why there is so much suffering in the world, why is it that unscrupulous people can continue to exploit innocent, well-meaning people – the list of questions is endless.

Then there are questions that deal with realities beyond our individual experiences which we would dearly love to get more insight on - questions like:

·         What is the ultimate purpose of my life

·         How do I cope with incurable disease like cancer, congenital muscular dystrophy and others

·         How can I find peace of mind

·         Is there life after death, and if there is, what form does it take

·         Why is it so difficult to forgive people who have caused me serious harm

There are, of course many resources that deal with the questions listed above.

In Living by the BOOK we use one resource – the Christian Bible (the BOOK) to shed some light on some of these deep questions, and how the knowledge gained affects our daily life.

The topics covered include:

Our complex make-up	Oppression and intimidation	Health and suffering
Relationships	Attitudes	The presence of God
The family	Enemies – problem of evil	Managing my habits
Our society	Vision	Servant leadership
Our history	Money	Being a team player
Our mission	Negotiation	You are never too old to learn

 

Three of us – Wolfgang Bernhardt, Sarie Snow and Derek Griffin – have worked on this challenging topic for two years in order to give you, the reader, ideas on what light the BOOK sheds to help us understand this mystery we call “LIFE”, and how to live it so that, when we are done, we can leave with no regrets.

Find out what happens when the legends from the ancient world collide with the chaos of eighteenth century India?