Posted on December 7, 2025 by - 1DBKE, 1DBKW, 1DDU-GB-E, 1DDU-GB-W, FA, FBA, FIC000000, HUM000000, Social comedy, WEBFICTION, WGGB, WH
The Batch Magna Chronicles 3
The Batch Magna Caper
Peter Maughan
Welcome to Batch Magna, a place where anything might happen. And often does…
A hapless gang of crooks, led by pawnbroker Harold Sneed, have managed pull off ‘the big one’: a wages snatch at a factory in Shrewsbury. Two gang members take the money back to Birmingham by train, changing at a station almost on the doorstep of Sir Humphrey of Batch Hall.
It’s there that things start to unravel. The money goes missing. Misunderstanding follows misunderstanding, until it leads the crooks to Batch Hall when everyone is busy with a historical re-enactment show. Among the replica firearms is a real gun, carried by Harold Sneed with murderous intent and Humphrey in mind.
Sneed is now convinced that Humphrey – an overweight former short-order cook from the Bronx – is a Mafia mobster lying low. And on top of this, he believes Humph has his money; as a result, the spectators at Batch Hall are in for more of a show than they bargained for…
Other books in the series
Posted on December 7, 2025 by - 1DBKE, 1DBKW, 1DDU-GB-E, 1DDU-GB-W, FA, FBA, FIC000000, HUM000000, Social comedy, WEBFICTION, WGGB, WH
The Batch Magna Chronicles 4
Clouds in a Summer Sky
Peter Maughan
Welcome to Batch Magna, a place where anything might happen. And often does…
Life in an old steam boat deep in the Welsh Borders holds numerous charms, but the Commander’s wife Priny is suffering from arthritis, a condition not at all improved by their water-based lifestyle. The couple take up an offer from Humphrey, the squire of Batch Hall, of a straight swap: their boat, the Batch Castle, for one of the Masters’ Cottages facing their beloved river.
The Castle is restored to river-worthiness and starts plying successfully as the Cluny Steamboat Company to Shrewsbury and back. As a result it takes a good deal of profit away from a taxi firm in a local border town, much to the displeasure of the firm’s English owner, Sidney Acton. Enlisting the aid of two corrupt Welsh councillors, Acton plots against the new venture. Only time will tell if his sabotage attempts will bear fruit or blow up in his face…
Other books in the series
Posted on December 7, 2025 by - 1DBKE, 1DBKW, 1DDU-GB-E, 1DDU-GB-W, FA, FBA, FIC000000, HUM000000, Social comedy, TRA006000, WEBFICTION, WGG, WGGB, WH
The Batch Magna Chronicles 5
The Ghost of Artemus Strange
Peter Maughan
Welcome to Batch Magna, a place where anything might happen. And often does…
Sir Humphrey has offered to play Father Christmas at the local hospital, but disaster strikes when he realises he won’t be able to buy the sack of toys he’d promised the children.
Rupert, a gentleman of the road, is found asleep in an old car in the Hall’s coach house. He is scrubbed up and given a room at the Hall, where two guests are already staying: a businessman and his rather young female companion. When money goes missing from their bedroom, Rupert is accused, and Miss Wyndham, the village’s amateur sleuth, decides to investigate the matter.
Meanwhile, local author Phineas Cook has come up with the idea of a resident ghost at the Hall to attract paying guests. All goes smoothly until the ghostly actors spend too long in the pub one evening and their performance descends into sword-wielding chaos.
As always in Batch Magna, events somehow manage to turn out all right in the end – but in the most unexpected manner…
Other books in the series
Posted on December 7, 2025 by - FA, FBA, FIC000000, FIC009000, FIC010000, FIC068000, FM, FN, FQ, HUM000000, Satirical Comedy, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Social comedy, WEBFICTION, WH, YAF017000, YAF017010, YAF019000, YAF019050, YAF027000, YAF031000, YFH
The Darkwood Series 1
Darkwood
Gabby Hutchinson Crouch
Magic is forbidden in Myrsina, along with various other abominations, such as girls doing maths.
This is bad news for Gretel Mudd, who doesn’t perform magic, but does know a lot of maths. When the sinister masked Huntsmen accuse Gretel of witchcraft, she is forced to flee into the neighbouring Darkwood, where witches and monsters dwell.
There, she happens upon Buttercup, a witch who can’t help turning things into gingerbread, Jack Trott, who can make plants grow at will, the White Knight with her band of dwarves and a talking spider called Trevor. These aren’t the terrifying villains she’s been warned about all her life. They’re actually quite nice. Well… most of them.
With the Huntsmen on the warpath, Gretel must act fast to save both the Darkwood and her home village, while unravelling the rhetoric and lies that have demonised magical beings for far too long.
Take a journey into the Darkwood in this modern fairy tale that will bewitch adults and younger readers alike.
Other books in the series
Posted on December 7, 2025 by - 1DBKEAX, 1DDU-GB-EAX, APT, ATJ, FA, FBA, FF, FFD, FFJ, FFS, FIC000000, FIC022000, FIC050000, FU, Humorous Mystery and Crime, PER010000, Social comedy, WEBFICTION
Cherry Slice
Jennifer Stone
Reality TV turns deadly in Cherry Hinton’s first case
When Kenny Thorpe, a contestant on Expose TV’s Big Blubber, the hot new celebrity weight-loss show, is murdered on live television in front of 3 million viewers, the case seems pretty watertight. After all, everyone saw Martin do it – didn’t they?
Cherry Hinton knows there’s more to this than meets the eye. As an investigative reporter, she went undercover on dating show Caravan of Love… but after getting in too deep with one of the other contestants, she was caught knickerless in front of the nation. Humiliated, fired and heartbroken, she has fled to Brentwood, where she opens a cake shop, and tries to forget all about Expose.
Until Kenny Thorpe’s sister walks into her shop with a letter that turns Cherry’s world upside down. Is Martin innocent? How is infamous gangster Leon Solent involved? Is Expose to blame, and is there a killer still on the loose?
Cherry is the only one in a position to find out.
Posted on December 7, 2025 by - 1KB, 1KBB, 1KBB-US-ML, 1KBB-US-MP, 1KBBN, FA, FBA, FH, FIC030000, FIC031000, FIC032000, FIC052000, FJM, FU, FUP, Satirical Comedy, WEBFICTION
Great America 2
The Great American Cheese War
The comedy thriller you’ll swear you’re living today
Paul Flower
Governor Bill Hoeksma of Michigan is a simple, gun-loving son of a billionaire who idolises George W. Bush.
When a mysterious illness afflicts members of his inner circle, his conspiring advisors point to a rumoured viral weapons attack – via monkeypox-carrying prairie dogs – launched by the Wisconsin government. Governor Bill decides the Michigan militia should lead the military response, chaos ensues, and he falls unwittingly into a scheme of his powerful father’s making. That scheme begins with cheese research and a Hollywood movie star. How it will end all depends on two unlikely heroes: an aging lesbian state senator, and a high-school teacher born and raised in the Michigan militia.
When the conspiracy runs out of road, and guns are drawn in a showdown outside a Cracker Barrel, will anyone emerge victorious from the Great American Cheese War?
Other books in the series
Posted on December 7, 2025 by - AVGC, AVLA, FA, FBA, FF, FIC000000, FIC022000, FIC027020, FIC050000, FRD, FU, HUM000000, Humorous Mystery and Crime, MUS006000, Romantic Comedy, Social comedy, WEBFICTION, WH
The Stockwell Park Orchestra Series 2
Bold as Brass
Isabel Rogers
Community music projects always spread harmony… don’t they?
When players in Stockwell Park Orchestra fear they may be getting out of touch with the community, they invite children from two nearby schools to join them for a season.
Supercilious, rich Oakdean College pupils have never mixed with the rough Sunbridge Academy kids, and when things go missing and rumours spread, the situation threatens to turn ugly. DCI Noel Osmar has to tread carefully: after all, he’s off duty. Step forward, Carl the trombonist.
Can music heal social rifts? Who has been stealing and why? And will the orchestra’s newly-composed fanfare turn out to be fantastic… or farcical?
Other books in the series
Posted on December 7, 2025 by - 1DBKE, 1DBKW, 1DDU-GB-E, 1DDU-GB-W, FA, FBA, FIC000000, HUM000000, Social comedy, WEBFICTION, WGGB, WH
The Batch Magna Chronicles 2
Sir Humphrey of Batch Hall
Peter Maughan
Welcome to Batch Magna, a place where anything might happen. And often does…
When the old squire of Batch Magna died, the life of distant relative Humphrey, an amiable, overweight short-order cook from the Bronx, turned into a movie. Now, as Sir Humphrey, he has acquired not only a new title but also a new love: the Honourable Clementine Wroxley. He and Clem plan to marry, settle into Batch Hall and begin a new life together.
Their finances at this early stage rest on the estate’s shooting and fishing, stepping stones to a more secure future. But one day a cold wind from beyond their valley visits Batch Magna in the shape of badger baiters discovered in Cutterbach Wood. They are routed, but their defeat entails such disaster that Humphrey and Clem are driven to the wall, left with no way out but to sell the estate, and their future along with it.
And then Miss Wyndham, village spinster and amateur sleuth, rides to the rescue on the 49 bus…
Other books in the series
Posted on December 7, 2025 by - 1DBKE, 1DBKW, 1DDU-GB-E, 1DDU-GB-W, FA, FBA, FIC000000, HUM000000, Social comedy, TRA006000, WEBFICTION, WGG, WGGB, WH
The Batch Magna Chronicles 1
The Cuckoos of Batch Magna
Peter Maughan
When Sir Humphrey Strange, 8th Baronet and squire of Batch Magna, departs this world for the Upper House, what’s left of his estate passes, through the ancient law of entailment, to distant relative Humph, an amiable, overweight short-order cook from the Bronx.
Sir Humphrey Franklin T. Strange, 9th Baronet and squire of Batch Magna, as Humph now most remarkably finds himself to be, is persuaded by his Uncle Frank, a small-time Wall Street broker, to make a killing by turning the sleepy backwater into a theme-park image of rural England, a playground for the world’s rich.
But while the village pub and shop put out the Stars and Stripes in welcome, the tenants of the estate’s dilapidated houseboats tear up their notices to quit, and led by pulp-crime writer Phineas Cook and the one-eyed Lt-Commander James Cunningham, they run up the Union Jack and prepare to engage.
Other books in the series
Posted on December 7, 2025 by - 5PS, 5S, FA, FIC000000, FIC028000, FIC028010, FIC028030, FIC028070, FIC028090, FIC028120, FIC068000, FL, FLS, FU, HUM000000, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Social comedy, WEBFICTION, WH
Battlestar Suburbia 2
Battle Beyond the Dolestars
Chris McCrudden
Time for the Machine Republic to Kurl Up and Dye
It’s a year since the Battlestar Suburbia broke free from Earth and the human rebellion is hiding out in the asteroid belt. Their leader, Admiral Janice, is assembling a fleet she hopes can topple robot rule – except on Wednesday afternoons when she can do you a half head of highlights for 30 quid.
Janice has given Darren, now the reluctant captain of the teenage starship Polari, a critical mission, to open up a path back to Earth by bombing the Martian Gap Services. But when it goes wrong and Darren and his crew are chased deep into the solar system, Janice has only one hope left, back on Earth.
Here, sentient breadmaker Pamasonic Teffal is resisting the human–machine war the best way she knows how: by running for office. Until a distress signal from Janice persuades her to get her turbo-charged alter ego Pam Van Damme out of mothballs, that is…
Can Pam save the solar system and rescue Kelly from the clutches of her nemesis, the crazed smartphone-turned-cyborg, Sonny Erikzon? Find out in another anarchic comic adventure from the inimitable Chris McCrudden.
Other books in the series
Drop us a line
Follow us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook