Böcker av Oliver Eade

LIGHT & DARK: Thirty-five short stories, some light and others dark, spanning different genres....LIGHT... A talking spider, into karma, persuades an arachnophobe to mend his ways; The song of a skylark transforms the life of a grieving widower; A racist white supremacist wakes up as a Black man...DARK... A woman loses her leg running from Franco's men to save her son during the Spanish Civil War; A family Christmas get-together goes dangerously wrong because of three Victorian dolls; A lecher gets his comeuppance after the woman he stalks turns to face him and the tables are turned...And more...

Scottish Borders schoolboy, Stevie Scott, befriends and protects Maisie Wu, a new girl from China, after she gets teased by classmates for being different, and for getting her 'ls' and her 'rs' muddled up when she speaks English. Together, they visit the River Tweed, early one morning, to see the ducklings. Maisie falls in and Stevie dives into the water to save her from drowning, but when they emerge they find themselves in mythological China where, as White Tiger and Hua Mei (Pretty Flower) they encounter talking animals and hungry ghosts and must undertake a dangerous mission to retrieve the Blue Dragon's magical red pearl and golden staff, stolen by Monkey King, if they are to return to their homes in Peebles, Scotland.

Sixteen year-old Gary, desperate for a girlfriend, finds a pair of time-specs in a London park. They flip him into twenty-third century submerged London, a terrifying place where he meets the beautiful young Beetie, but he soon learns that love also brings unbearable burdens. Together with other rebels holed up in the disused London Underground, she leads Gary and his irrepressibly annoying friend, Mike, on a journey of passion, deceit, loyalty and terror... a journey to uncover the dark mystery of the Terminus, involving an enigmatic time-traveler called 'God' and an ancient Atlantean artefact.'Once you pick up this chilling book, be prepared to climb onto an emotional roller-coaster which you can't get off until the story reaches its dramatic conclusion...'

Larry, an Edinburgh schoolboy, defies his doctor father, during COVID-19 lockdown, to meet with friends in the Meadows, but abandons them on seeing Skye, a girl in the year below him with whom he has been in love ever since she sang a solo at a school concert two years previously. Engineered by Larry''s doting sister, Angie, their young love seems to blossom until Skye is taken away to Stornoway by her single mother and forbidden to contact Larry. Devastated, Larry then goes down with COVID-19 and ends up on a ventilator where his life hangs in the balance whilst, disconnected from his body, he relives past lives over seven thousand years. These stories all relate to major advances in the history of medicine, from the trephining of skulls (drilling holes in the head) seven thousand years ago to the recent discovery of CRISPR technology to remove harmful genes which, when Larry recovers, and he meets up again with Skye, might provide a solution to the true reason for her mother''s decision to separate the young lovers: a genetic condition which was the reason Skye''s musician father abandoned her and her mother. The love story is interwoven with stories from the past that highlight breakthroughs that changed medicine forever, each complemented by a factual account and illustrated by the author''s own, often heartfelt, experiences as a hospital doctor.

Dylan, in love with classmate Alice, who lives next door, despairs of ever impressing her after his father, their hated maths teacher, shouts at her to keep her goldador quiet. When Bouncer goes missing, he seizes his chance. Outside Number Twenty-four, home of the mysterious Professor Pringle, he finds Bouncer’s collar. And a talking dog. He persuades a reluctant Alice to enter but gets more than he bargained for when the teens are transported to Dogtopia where human and dog roles are reversed, and Alice becomes Bouncer’s pet. Here he must prove his worth by rescuing his annoying young sister, Caitlin, turned duck by the evil Scissorman. First, however, they must help free Bosona, Top Dog, Pringle’s owner and Bouncer’s new love, but whom can they trust, and where is Ben, Alice’s beloved brother? Shy Dylan’s confidence grows as his bravery is revealed, but how can he ever replace Colin in Alice’s heart?

In a post-apocalyptic Scotland ruled by women, Solem escapes from Man Camp 7, helped by a woman called Texta. He and a ‘clonie’ called Rea hope to reach the ‘Island’. How could he have known that this was all engineered as part of the Parth Path’s parthenogenesis programme to create the Immortal Controller, an invincible leader whose clones will rule forever?On the Island, he is haunted by memories of an idyllic childhood as ‘Peter’, on a reservation with his friend, wee Moira, before his family was brutally slaughtered by Parth Path wardens during a ‘clearance’. He struggles to rediscover happiness with Rea.Sara, a mysterious girl next door, falls for Peter, as he now prefers to be called again, though only shows this by helping Rea. Meanwhile, Moira, still yearning for her childhood sweetheart, after being sent to the Parth Path School, ends up as Director and as such is on the Parth Path Council. She joins Texta, really the brutal  man camp Commandant, to collect Rea’s baby from the Island, It turns out that little Mary is the genetically-contrived and much-awaited ‘Special Child’ of the parthenogenesis programme, Her clones are detined to rule forever as the 'Immortal Controller'..One of Texta’s bullies kills Rea. Moira, horrified, shoots Texta. Meanwhile, Sara escapes with Mary to the mainland, vowing to protect Peter’s child at all costs.At first Peter blames Moira for Rea’s death, but soon their past friendship is re-kindled. They make love, but are tricked by Matt, the father of Sara’s brother, and whose son was killed by Moira’s wardens, into believing their lives are in danger. Whilst Peter is told to hide in a cove, Moira is taken to a wartime hideout where she expects to meet up with Peter. Instead she’s cruelly raped by Peter’s reservation rival, Luke... Matt’s revenge for the death of his son. But Moira escapes and kills Luke, returning to the mainland to seek out Peter. Peter emerges from the cove to find Matt, in his rage, has also massacred all survivors of the Island community apart from Angela, Sara’s taciturn mother. He leaves the Island with her, hoping to find Mary in the City of the Castle (Edinburgh), but is warned against this. Instead, he finds Moira, and together they flee south of the wall that defines Parth Path territory (‘Parthpathia’) to start a new life in the ‘wilds’. Sara, meanwhile, living in the castle with Mary and a clone of elderly Controllers, is befriended by two old maids who knew the First Controller, the lesbian scientist who started the Parth Path project. She learns things from the ‘Shrine’, which houses the First Controller’s computers, that prepare her for what’s to come.When an epidemic of Scarlet Fever decimates the population, killing the Controllers and Moira, Peter, beside himself with grief, sets off for the City with one bullet left in his gun to kill Sara for conniving with the Parth Path and taking Mary away. However, he discovers a young woman, now Controller herself, and wise way beyond her years, who has been a perfect mother for his daughter. Sara had discovered that the First Controller wanted to abandon the parthenogenesis programme in favour of natural selection but was murdered by her minions. Peter now realises that only he and Sara, by working together, the ‘yin’ and the ‘yang’, can help society to start all over again.

A collection of fifty-four short stories by a prize-winning novelist inspired by family connections and travels across the world. Some are set firmly in the real world: an elderly English spinster living with a grumpy sister reveals a long-kept secret when her American son gets in touch; a shy wife discovers she's more attractive than she had ever imagined when her husband's old friend turns up; a sexist professor learns the cruel truth on overhearing his latest 'conquest' talking to her friend in a cafe. Magic invades realism in 'The Red Chevy', when an old lady in a Texan care home relives her past until she escapes back into it. The writer's personal experience of an earthquake in China inspired 'The Old Grandmother' in which a grandfather and granddaughter make a pilgrimage up Tai Shan mountain to the Buddhist temple on the summit. In other stories, a Japanese man is married to a Manga girl whilst an Aborigine boy in Australia dreams of the legendary Red Kangaroo in 'Kangaroo Dreaming', a dream that foretells the end of White Man's world and a return to the old ways. There's gentle humour in 'The Hole', in which a hen-pecked Scottish Borders husband creates an underground retreat in his garden only to meet up with an ancient Celt doing the same to escape the invading Scots. In 'The Wave', a tribute to all who died in the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami, a wealthy Bangkok doctor returns to the beach where he used to meet up with his first love, a poor fisherman's daughter. An elderly woman questions why the walls in her nursing home whisper about death, and, in 'The Soul Sweeper', we learn what happens to the soul after death. A boy finds the ghost of Victorian girl under his bed in 'Pink Slippers', and in 'The Christmas Dance', a dying musician has his first-ever dance with the Angel of Death. In 'Frog Therapy Ltd', an infirm elderly couple learn that a potential cure also carries a risk of side-effects. In 'One Click Away', a man learns that computer problems extend to beyond the grave, and in 'Cissy', reincarnation links India with England. A notorious Italian jewel thief, who has inherited his mother's ability to transform into anything he chooses, gets comeuppance in one story. In another, a little girl meets a giant rabbit in an allegory about Man's greed destroying his planet. Orphaned tiger cubs kill a village girl to survive in 'The Two-legged Deer', and in 'A Baker's Novel', a dying man tries to re-write a tragic past in a novel. A man fighting for his life on an operating table, after a major head trauma,journeys, inside his head, to death in 'The Letter'. In 'C Sharp Minor', a young girl, aspiring to be a concert pianist, is in emotional turmoil after taking on the part of the teenage countess in a TV biopic about the doomed love affair between Beethoven and the girl for whom he wrote the Moonlight Sonata. One little boy wonders whether a sly fox that killed Old Annie's hens was really the devil; another, in 'The Tower of Truth', avoids a fairgound tower where his grandfather discovers pain, not pleasure, when promised 'the past, present and future.' A doctor discovers disturbing secrets about his family's past from his dementing aunt in one story. In another, an old Spaniard remembers the night his mother and village were wiped out by Franco's men. In 'Hawai'i', did the Polynesian Goddess of fire, Pele, really sit next to a tourist on an airplane? In another story, a classics professor is certain the flight attendant is Aphrodite. Although the stories span different genres, they share a common human

  Rachel, a Texan schoolgirl, takes her hamster, Waffles, for a secret ride on the strange carousel rainbow animal in Houston. She ends up in Colourwallytown where people and houses are painted cheerful colours, and gets mistaken for their new military advisor in an impending war with neighbouring black and white Dullabillieville. The reason for the war appears to be a dispute over the true colour of witches.  She sees a boy in grey climb down from the zebra and leave the carousel in the direction of Dullabillieville, and is certain he’s her studious classmate Alec, accused by kids at school of being the son of witches. Taken in by a kind landlady, Mrs Pink, her hair, shoes and, by mistake, Waffles, are dyed pink to conform with Colourwally regulations. At a bizarre Council of War with President Banana, his nail-painting wife, First Lady Violet, the sheriff, sergeant and a batty General Greengage, the fact that she has no sensible ‘military strategy’ seems of no importance to the town’s leaders.  Sheriff Tomato, the nervous Colourwally sheriff, and Sergeant Lobster cause Rachel to giggle most of the time as she tries to lead the Colourwally troops, armed with paint brushes and the formidable ‘paint tank’, across the river to turn the Dullabillieville river-front houses pretty colours. They meet no resistance in Dullabillieville, apart from the Dullabilly lieutenant’s two small children who are having fun splashing coloured paint over themselves. Rachel soon discovers why. The Dullabilly army is the other side of the river busily turning Colourwallytown black and white and grey.  Frightened the two sides might actually come to blows and scare Waffles, the girl decides a treaty is called for. Besides, she doesn’t believe in witches! She returns, alone, to Colourwallytown  to seek out Alec, the Dullabilly military advisor, who turns out to be a nice lad. Together they scheme to hold a tea-party for the opposing factions and arrange a cease-fire. Presidents Banana and Coalface are invited, but only allowed to have pieces of Mrs Pink’s cake (the woman’s an excellent cook) if both agree to stop hostilities and sign ‘The Treaty of Waffles’. Mrs Pink, a widow, is delighted, for she can now offer to look after the children of the Dullabilly lieutenant, Whitestone, a widower whom she secretly likes.  Back at the carousel Rachel and Alec dodge the unpleasant true military advisor, Turkey Cupcake, to prevent him getting hold of their treaty. On Rachel’s return to the mall in Houston, astride the Rainbow Animal, she finds her mother still reading a magazine on a bench. Only three minutes have passed since the girl last saw her. When she sees Alec holding the Treaty of Waffles, having just dismounted from the zebra, she knows she didn’t imagine it all.  Alec leaves the treaty in the safe hands of the lady who takes the tokens at the carousel kiosk, and he and Rachel become good friends. Rachel spreads the word around that children who believe in witches are silly…and that Alec is the bravest boy in the school.  Although they disagree about things like ‘why Sheriff Tomato blinks a lot when he gets nervous’, they are agreed on one point: that war is stupid.

Golden Jaguar of the Sun blurb for Mauve Square website previewGeeky Texan ninth grader, Adam Winters, can''t beautiful Mexican classmate María has dumped her hunk of a quarterback boyfriend for him. Her gift of an ancient bracelet linked to the legendary Golden Jaguar of the Sun changes him. But love confounded by jealousy takes the teens on a perilous journey across different dimensions, shadowed by the mystical beast, from a sacrificial Aztec temple to a drug gangsters'' jungle hideout and to Xibalba, the ''Place of Fear'' of the ancient Maya people. And will the boy discover who the girl really is and why fate has brought them together?.

Sixteen year-old Gary, desperate for a girlfriend, finds a pair of time-specs in a London park. They flip him into twenty-third century submerged London, a terrifying place where he meets the beautiful young Beetie, but he soon learns that love also brings unbearable burdens. Together with other rebels holed up in the disused London Underground, she leads Gary and his irrepressibly annoying friend, Mike, on a journey of passion, deceit, loyalty and terror... a journey to uncover the dark mystery of the Terminus, involving an enigmatic time-traveler called 'God' and an ancient Atlantean artifact. 'Once you pick up this chilling book, be prepared to climb onto an emotional roller-coaster which you can't get off until the story reaches its dramatic conclusion...'