Kev richardson
Early Australia History
The Soul of Australia series
Gurrewa
Its 1st edition, Gurrewa, was awarded a Finalist Degree in the International Epic Awards of 2003—the first novel on the Founding of White Australia told through convict eyes since Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of his Natural Life (1870) – Gurrewa tells the story of Australia’s first white settlement and the Aboriginal demise told both through the eyes of a convict lad learning about life, people and values, and the eyes of the Sydney Cove Aborigines. It empties the vacuum cleaner with which modern Australians were at last cleaning under the carpet where, for generations, the dust of truth was swept.
Adam, a London gutter waif, his only skill the art of street survival, accepts his world in happy ignorance. He evaluates humanity not according to precepts of social expectation but of experience. He seeks tenderness and succour in an environment that provides neither. In the horrors of the hulks and transportation, his emotions find outlets in dreaming, in torment, in love, in adventure. From his first days at Sydney Cove, he lives the shame of a new nation’s founding. Threatened securities become shattered and he can but dream of a world where there is compassion and dignity.
The Aborigine too, finds his securities shattered, faced with the dilemma of the painful, terrible realisation that his heritage is crumbling.
Disparaged that in the convict heart is only shame for his world, Adam discovers in the black man’s culture, solace and dignity, yet the shame will not die. Alongside the Aborigine, he takes up the fight against the white advance—a fearful, emotional war that cannot be won.
5++ Stars ! 
I wept for Adam Ashby, not because he lived such a degrading, despairing life as a lowly convict, but because he had finally discovered acceptance and respect by the Aborigines of New South Wales, only to be hunted down by his own people. He had bolted into the wilds rather than be flogged for his latest crime. This is a poignant story of a boy who in his teens searched for a kind and gentler world where a person could be loved for simply being himself. Instead, he is jailed and thrown in with hardened criminals and military men who greedily seek power over their charges. In spite of what this criminal environment has in store for Adam, he nonetheless survives. Yet it is his searching for empathetic love and respect that carries him into manhood. And Oh, that ending! It hit me right in the gut. Masterful stuff!
… JoEllen, Conger Books Reviews (USA)
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5 Stars for Kev Richardson’s GURREWA !
This third edition continues emptying the vacuum-cleaner with which modern Australians are at last cleaning under the carpet where for generations, the dust of truth was swept. It is the first intensive study of what happed in Sydney Cove, told through convict eyes, yet with added meat, since Marcus Clark’s masterpiece ‘For the Term of his Natural Life’ in 1870. It delves too, into the Aborigine facing the terrible realisation that his heritage is crumbling. Gurrewa gives us a remarkable insight into the perturbations of both the convict and the black man, for his tomorrows.
… Libbie Abbott, Aussie eBook Reviews
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5 out of 5 Star – Outstanding
Gurrewa is an impeccably researched history of Australia’s First Fleet of settlers and convicts. It is told through the mind and body of a fourteen year old London street gamin who is sentenced to seven years for lifting a few articles of clothing. He is sent to labor on the Thames hulks before being transported to Botany Bay.
Richardson skillfully tells the story of convict hardship in stark reality. The reader does not suspect he is being given a history lesson. A lesson few of us have heard. I strongly urge anyone to pick up a copy of this excellently written work.
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5 Stars !!! !!!
Gurrewa tells the brutal shame of a new nation’s founding, the plight of convicts, and of Aborigines facing the terrible realisation that their heritage is crumbling. Author Kev Richardson has caught the flavor and pure awfulness of the time about which he writes. His characters are well drawn and believable. Without hesitation I recommend this story to anyone who likes historical or mainstream tales.
… Anne K. Edwards, eBooks Reviews Weekly
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Award-winning book revised
Gurrewa, first novel of Australia’s convict history told through convict eyes since Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of his Natural Life in 1870, has just hit the market in its third edition.
An award winner, it details the experiences of convict life when, in 1788, the First Fleet of Great Britain’s wayward men and women set foot in Botany Bay to establish a convict settlement. It empties the vacuum cleaner with which modern Australians are at last cleaning under the carpet where, for generations, the dust of truth was swept.
Adam, a London gutter gamin, his only skill the art of street survival, accepts his world in happy ignorance. He seeks tenderness and succour in an environment providing neither. In the horrors of the hulks and transportation his emotions find outlets in dreaming, in torment, in love and adventure.
From his first days at Sydney Cove he lives the shame of a new nation’s founding. Threatened securities become shattered; he can but dream of a world with compassion and dignity.
Aborigines, too, find their securities dwindling. Adam bolts, to live with and understand the terror amongst them. He takes up the fight against the white advance…a fearful, emotional war that cannot be won.
Dr. Bob Rich (Australian Award Winning Author) 2 August 2018
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Note Paperbacks - all titles%% 99
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Son of Gurrewa
The second generation of white Australia was a time of rapid growth. With the industrial revolution beginning in Britain, machines began replacing nimble fingers…many of the poor found themselves in a ‘steal or starve’ situation. With Napoleon defeated, countless thousands of British servicemen were demobbed into gutters to join the steal or starve ranks. Britain’s gaols burst at the seams and transportation to New South Wales burgeoned. For free people it became a region of unrealised opportunity as well as for many, incredible luck.
Son of Gurrewa highlights how the convict stigma influenced the social structure through the second white generation…those born to the First Fleet convicts. It was a time of exploration and discovery.
A young man questions, then discovers values essential to finding meaningful satisfactions in such a unique lifestyle. Its telling paints the lives and experiences of real, significant people in that generation of Australia’s history. It illustrates too, how Australia earned its reputations of both Lucky Country and Land of Opportunity.
The sorry hand of fate most-times visits only hardships on a developing community, yet occasionally some pawns in the game of life find Lady Luck lends a hand. The odds for this second generation Adam, fall a little each way.
5 Stars
Son of Gurrewa is a worthy sequel to Award Winning Gurrewa. Kevin Richardson has the unique ability to tell his country’s history as it affects people, by letting his lifelike characters tell it from their own minds in their own words. This preamble on Australia’s convict beginnings makes the reader believe he or she is really there, influenced by the real events of those days. You cannot but help feel part of it!
Libby Abbot, Aussie eBook Reviews
5 Stars !
Adam Ashby of Gurrewa is Kev Richardson’s fictionalized convict-birthed character born to an unwed couple, a ‘bolted’ convict and his ‘colony wife’. Son of Gurrewa represents the second generation of white man’s life in Australia. It tells the real history of New South Wales’ struggles to become more than just an overflow prison for England’s criminals. It is also an excellent portrayal of how Australia earned its reputation as both The Lucky Country and Land of Opportunity.
For those of you who miss the history in your Historical reads, you’ll not be disappointed in this factional account of Australian history, 1790–1820s.
And Kev, I just love the way you throw a good story together!
JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews, USA
Note Paperbacks - all titles%% 99
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Dreamtime Drift
When the first white people arrived to settle the vast Australian continent in 1788, its Aborigines were estimated to have numbered near one million. The 1900 census figure was 93,000.
Today, the number of full-blooded Aborigines is less than ten thousand.
Dreamtime Drift is set during the years 1824-1830, using recorded history of the first white settlement of the present state of Queensland, to illustrate how neglectful and destructive was the emerging white community, of the country’s Aboriginal people.
First in the Soul of Australia trilogy, Gurrewa, told the beginning of Australia’s white settlement. The first fleet had brought seven hundred and fifty convicts and some three hundred red-coated marines to police them, and officers to administer all of what was, in effect, the world’s biggest prison. It told of the founding through the eyes of both convicts and the displaced Aboriginal people. Son of Gurrewa told of the development during the second generation as further prisons were established, disrupting Aboriginal life and culture.
Dreamtime Drift illustrates the continued devastation of Aboriginal livelihood and culture as increasing numbers of convicts arrived ever northwards from Sydney Cove. It takes the reader into the very heart of the shock, insecurity and helplessness of Australia’s indigenous people as Whiteman bludgeoned his way forward and began the settlement of Brisbane. Aboriginal homelands were to become sheep and cattle grazing properties and countless thousands of acres of wheat and corn.
The Aborigine was not offered the choice of retreat or murder as Whiteman’s frenetic race for more land continued; the realisation but slowly dawned as he suffered the increasing pain.
Dreamtime Drift has been awarded 5 Stars by both Australian and USA award houses.
Dreamtime Drift Reviews
In another 5 Star revelation from the pen of Kev Richardson, Dreamtime Drift tells the dreadful tale of how in early Australia, Whiteman’s frenetic race to grab arable land using hard-labour-convicts to build a prison and farmlands, bludgeon their way at the expense of the Aboriginal people. Struggling under a government striving to build a further dependency in its empire, the native inhabitants fighting to protect their very existence, buckle under the power of the educated invaders. This work takes the reader into the very heart of the shock, insecurity and helplessness of Australia’s indigenous people…
Libby Adams, Aussie eBook Reviews.
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5 Stars!
Multi-published Historical writer, Kev Richardson found himself truly challenged in his endeavorto locate the Aboriginal voice to weave into Australia’s early history. As is often the case, the indigenous people were without a written language. therefore, the Australian Aborigine’s story could be unearthed from only vocally repeated myths and metaphysical beliefs.
Through the eyes of the gentle natives 1824 to 1830 in Dreamtime Drift, Kev recreates the emotional conflict and mystical beliefs of the peaceful Turrbal and Jagera people. It is a then account of the injustices and savagery inflicted on a gentle race of people by the British invaders; those with little regard for the rights of indigenous people.
This exceptional work truly touched my heart.
What gave me real satisfaction in this historical account of Aboriginal abuse is Banyo’s parting sentiments to the notoriously cruel Captain Logan. It was a fitting and subtle salutation to a man with so much evil in his heart as to be forbidden the right to enter the tranquility of the afterlife.
JoEllen,Conger Book Reviews, USA
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The first word that comes to mind from reading Kev Richardson’s historical novel, Dreamtime Drift, is Superb. I highly recommend this third installment of his Soul of Australia series. The amount of research that went into crafting this book is awe-inspiring and astounding. Coupled with being extremely well-written, well-delivered, including a glossary and diagrams, it packs a powerful punch to stay with his readers forever.
Dreamtime Drift tells the story of the demise of the Aborigines in Australia during 1824-1830. They are spiritual, peaceful, self-sufficient hunter-gathering nomads who lived simply and happily. Along came Whiteman to steal their land along with bringing cholera and smallpox to kill thousands.
The story is told through the eyes and hearts of a white sympathizer and an indigenous man. It is so vividly portrayed that you feel you are right there witnessing the struggles and the horrendous slaughter of innocent Aborigines at the hands of British settlers wanting their land and stooping to anything to get it.
My heart was stirred by Richardson’s intense, skillful writing and I will never forget the unique Aborigines and what they stood for – their love, simplicity and spiritual ethics. I highly recommend this work for it is a must read. I look forward to the next one. I learned a lot, grew a lot, and it will stay in my heart forever.
Suzanne Hurley – www.suzannemhurley.blogspot.com
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Note Paperbacks - all titles%% 99
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Early Austraalian History
The Letitia Munro series
Letitia Munro
A true tale of those who in witless ignorance transform a wilderness into a land of free enterprise and pride. To relieve the pressure of overcrowded gaols, Britain began in 1787, despatching pickpockets, thieves, forgers and other petty criminals over a period of eighty years, to New South Wales. Such was the beginning of the white Australian civilisation. That ancient land became, overnight, the biggest prison in the world.
Letitia was of the First Fleet. Seven hundred and fifty convicts in chains, their military guards and a score of government administrators with no real idea of what they would discover on landing, made their eight month journey half-way around the world. Only slowly and painfully did every soul come to realise the aches, pains and anguish of founding a settlement in a wilderness far from help and succour. For the convicts in particular, it was fear personified.
Illiterate and friendless under martial law, under attack by hostile natives, their role was, by hard physical labour, to carve out a settlement.
Australia’s convict forebears were essentially British in culture, staunchly British in allegiance yet the axiomatic sense of freedom in their descendants was inherited not from British freedom but from British oppression. It was the very ignominy of servitude that cast their blood and guts dignity and bred in them their irrefragable support for the underdog. Determination of purpose, henceforth, developed towards mateship and a flippant attitude to authority. Conventions of class distinction became a barrier to be bested as they cleaved their several paths out of adversity, grasping any chance to create opportunities of easing pain.
So these ‘vagabonds’ became leaders by example in establishing the cultural trends of Australian society. Convicts emerged from their world of oppression and intimidation establishing traits of self-reliance, doggedness and obstinacy of purpose—essential ingredients in creating a culture of initiative and stubborn resolve. They unwittingly established social standards suited to their unique circumstance.
Titia, illiterate and cowed when arrested at nineteen years of age, earning her fourteen year sentence of transportation, was to illustrate latent strengths emerging as she bested her hardships. Many convict records survive in Australian archives and she was one who became unique in Australia’s history as she played her part in establishing the ethos of today’s Australians, living to the grand age, for the times, of ninety. Titia not only saw Australia’s convict beginnings from its day of inauguration at Botany Bay to its day of demise in Van Diemen’s Land, but lived to become its last surviving convict, matriarch to thousands of descendants.
In her long and significant life there was nothing to suggest that the sum total of the lives, experiences and fortunes of her and her convict friends and families were unique. Each was broadly typical of the 162,000 convicts transported to Australian shores 1788 through 1868 to found a nation, a culture, and a unique heritage.
5 Stars!
Kev Richardson, a 6th generation descendant First Fleeter, continues his authentic historical account about the thousands upon thousands of convicts imprisoned on New South Wales—a land that not even the king himself knew had too little fresh water to drink, or sufficient tillable soil to support the hoards of convicts he sent. Letitia never realized when sentenced for stealing a partial bolt of cloth, that she would become a memorable part of Australian history.
It’s like no history I’ve ever read. The voice in this work carries the reader right into the trying times of convict life—I found this book an informative account, written the way I like to read history. Richardson makes you live the part of the suffering and struggles of the times.
I highly recommend it.
…JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews, USA
……..***……..
5 Stars!
Letitia Munro is a work deserving of the highest awards in Australia’s history. Richardson has studied his nation’s convict history from A to Z, is a Past President of The First Fleet Fellowship and a Past Secretaryof The Descendants of Convicts Inc.
This wonderfully presented true history read will keep you spellbound!
Libby Abbott, Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
To Plough Van Diemen’s Land
The first white Australians were convicts, pickpockets, thieves, forgers and other petty criminals despatched from bulging British gaols.
Letitia Munro told the true tale of those who in witless ignorance as they landed on the naked shores of Botany Bay, began transforming a wilderness into a land of free enterprise and pride.
Following generations of convicts arrived to marry the sons and daughters of the first, to together carve notches in the culture they were unwittingly developing. Conventions of class distinction became a barrier to be bested as they cleaved their several paths out of adversity, grasping any chance to create opportunities of not only easing pain but laying foundations for an honourable future.
These ‘vagabonds’ became leaders by example in establishing the cultural trends of Australian society. Convicts emerged from their world of oppression and intimidation with established traits of self-reliance, doggedness and obstinacy of purpose, essential ingredients in creating a culture of initiative and stubborn resolve. They unwittingly established social standards suited to their unique circumstance. Influenced more by whips and chains in servitude than by examples set for them, they became perforce, overt, their opinions forthright and even blunt, traits adopted by their children.
Society values, however, keep changing and the majority had to face the realisation that the stains of convict blood continued to seep through the pages of their life and must be hidden. A great dilemma was visited upon the people, causing considerable havoc within families. Must parents lie to their children?
To Plough Van Diemen’s Land takes chosen true characters through this life, up to the cessation of convictism. The name of the colony was then changed from Van Diemen’s Land to Tasmania in the hope of expunging the convict image.
5 Stars
Kev Richardson has a way of introducing the reader to each of Letitia Munro’s family, making the history in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s come alive.
The Van Diemen’s Land name was changed in an effort to hide the social guilt of inhumane suffering, starvation, deliberate brutalities, and unpardonable cruelties dealt against prisoners whose misdeeds were often only crimes of ‘desperation in surviving hard times’. It was such beginnings that established the convicts’ loyal code against their captors, formulating the heritage of ‘bonded relationships’ in today’s Australians.
I highly recommend Kev’s historical tales. He brings history to life.
…JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews USA
……..***……..
5 Big Stars!
Second in the Letitia Munro trio of true-life tales of Australia’s founding as the world’s largest prison.
Convicts despatched from Britain’s bulging gaols served out their sentences in an ancient land, wresting it from Aborigines, that it be turned over to agriculture and sheep-grazing. This episode tells of the second generation experiences, hardships, loves and heartbreaks as they unwittingly forged a new ethos. Mostly illiterate and lacking skills, some failed at farming while others succeeded, unaware of the social taboos being woven into the fabric of the nation’s spawning culture.
When the sins of fathers became beholden on them as society values changed, must they deny their very heritage?
Richardson has a careful and strangely unique way of telling how such strange beginnings were blessed upon a land that had never known white-man needs. Go for it!
Libby Abbott – Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
The Terrible Truths
When their known world did an about-face on Convictism, declaring the very purpose Australia was founded, it created quite a dilemma throughout the growing colony. It was declared a mistake, that to take a place in society, the dreadful truths of having convict blood flowing in ones veins, was itself a heinous crime. Parents must lie to their children—hide The Terrible Truths for ever.
The authorities declared that the very knowledge that Australia was founded as the biggest prison in the world, that all Australians must cast from memories, how the very foundation of the Australian ethos was spawned! Even documents referring to it were destroyed—a very culture was being denied!
We might today ask how parents, mothers as well as fathers, explained away the scars left from wrist and ankle chains, and of whip-lashes on their backs.
Could the stigmas of having convict blood flowing though one’s veins, remain forever buried?
In The Terrible Truths, Letitia Munro’s descendants, in this true tale of an Australian family, struggle to find answers.
5 Stars!
I must agree with Australian historian Kev Richardson, a proud sixth generation ‘First Fleeter’, that denying the terrible truths of convictism and its atrocities, only made today’s Australians stronger for realising how their forebears clung together to cope with intolerance, bigotry, and hypocrisy of the times.
I found reading about the true history of the 1800’s in Australia, an eye-opener.
Here is a modern day author bravely disclosing the terrible truths concealed behind the recorded history of the ancestors transported into a living hell, and how they really lived and loved. I highly recommend this series to all history lovers. This book will open your eyes to the shocking truths behind Australia’s hidden past.
…JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews USA
……..***……..
5 Stars!
Third work in the trio after Letitia Munro and To Plough Van Diemen’s Land continues the astounding tale of Australia’s founding convicts.
We discover how individual families transform the world’s biggest prison into a land of free enterprise and pride.
Having grown up in the shadows of their parents’ pasts, each family faces the traumas in holding heads high in a society of change, one intent on sweeping the convict past under carpets as even educators lie to its county’s students. Parents agonise over preparing the next generation to cope. Must they deny their children their very heritage?
The Terrible Truths takes you right into the hearts of true characters. None realised their unwitting discoveries were creating today’s Australians’ unique outlook on life.
Libby Abbott – Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Action-Adventure
Brogan series
Brogan
Some call Australia the lucky country, land of opportunity, continent of contrasts. All true.
Some call Australia’s people brash, basic and brutally forthright. Also true.
Seventy-five percent of Australians inhabit the temperate southeast crescent, fifteen percent live in the tropical north and but ten percent inhabit eighty percent of this fifth largest continent in the world.
Brogan, born in the drifting sands of corner-country on desert-edge, of drifting parents, his values founded on the rationale of drifting drovers, is of the latter few. The turn of the nineteenth century in the far outback, fifty years after the first historic yet fatal excursion into the vast unknown centre, remained a time of dogged struggle to even survive the conditions. Yet a hard core of men and women braved persistent droughts in their world of heat and sand and paradoxically, periodic floods so widespread that the vast plains became an impassable inland sea.
Of formal education, medical aid, contact with settled parts in those days, there was none. Neighbours lived a hundred miles distant and camels were beasts of burden for supplies as well as trusty ‘steeds’ of transport; no other creature could traverse the waterless terrain.
Brogan the boy, neglected and lonely, discovers life under the patronage of such unlikely mentors as the ‘black nuns’ of the aboriginal mission at Milparinka who ‘mother’ him, the old Afghani camel driver who ‘fathers’ him and a cocky farmer in Queensland’s channel-country who harbours him. Kelly, an aboriginal ‘yellahair’, befriends him. And let’s not ignore, of course, the poxed and grasping Elsie who uses him.
The Brogan story exemplifies the life, trials and tribulations of typical Australians in the unforgiving outback.
5+ Stars!
‘Brogan the boy’, was born into a loveless relationship to the man who sired him. He was looked after by whomever his father found to care for him, as though he were an unwanted pup. If it hadn’t been for Da’oud, the old Arab, he might never have lived to become a man.
Some people are born with a higher sense of self-survival than others, and Brogan learned through his hard knocks just how to meet adventurous head on. This a very sensitive look of an unwanted boy’s growing up and surviving to become ‘Brogan the Man’.
When Amr Brogan first put his hands on a flying machine, he knew who he wanted to be when he became a man. He vowed nothing, and no one would ever stand in the way of his dream. He would do whatever it took to fly a plane. This is the beginning of the Brogan series, and how he became the adventurous man in all the exciting books that follow. This book is definitely a keeper.
…JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews USA
……..***……..
5 Stars!
Australia in the early 1900s is a country in transition. Camels still provide the most reliable transport of goods across the wide desert expanses, but the pedal-wireless connects people even on remote cattle stations. Droughts and floods play havoc with the livelihoods of ranchers, yet the discovery of opal brings unimaginable prosperity.
Into this world is born Brogan, son of a drover who wants nothing more for his son than the little he had for himself. Brogan, however, is destined for more than droving…under the influence of an Arab caravan leader, a Catholic nun, a station owner and his wife, even a grizzled camp cook, Brogan the Boy becomes Brogan the Man…a man whose dreams lead him out of the Outback, into Australia’s future.
An exciting read.
Libby Abbott, Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Brogan’s Bust
Colombia and Peru stand tall among countries infested with graft, crime and corruption. They spearhead intrigue in the world’s most politically unstable continent where ruthless crime bosses bludgeon their ways to wealth in land rackets, prostitution, extortion, illegal gem trading, drugs, gun-running and smuggling. Guerrilla bands maraud and butcher their ways to political unrest and in the backwaters of the mighty Amazon, in the disease infested jungle towns on the equator, illicit river traffic is the major industry.
This is the story of an adventurer enmeshed in intrigue. Brogan flies a courier service between remote jungle outposts, each on the very edge of moral propriety where graft and corruption make mockery of the law. Conscientious policemen flounder in the swill of their catch-twenty-two environment when instructed to turn blind eyes to corruption in order to preserve lives and securities.
Among Brogan’s friends are police officers of Colombia and Peru, subservient to corrupt military leaders and together they plot to do no more than upset the smooth running of illicit trades that plague their world. However, they find that intrigue and backstabbing amongst cartel middle men goaded by greed, that their hiccup causes a stumble that generates into a fall to begin a slide to snowball into an avalanche.
The jungle communities in which they operate are havens for those who choose to turn backs on civilisation to live where, in the 1930s they are a thousand kilometres from the nearest road, electric light or telephone.
Into this hot-pot of dropouts from civilisation, stir in schemers and grafters, a novice priest on his founding assignment, the erstwhile upholders of law and order, ethnic Indians who resent the intruders and those who somehow continue to hold a moral faith in an environment that exists largely on moral faithlessness… You soon have simmering, a rich ragout of intrigue, murder, subterfuge, romance and adventure.
5 Stars!
Brogan’s Bust by Kev Richardsoncontinues the adventures of the charismatic Brogan, flying charter in the backstabbing world of gun-running, drug-smuggling intrigue in the Amazon jungles.
The tale is a well crafted, high testosterone tale of corrupt international trafficking in gems, guns and drugs. In fact, I couldn’t help but wonder how this author knew so much detailed information about the strong-armed men of South America? It all sounds so realistic, as though he’s been there, done that… and survived.
…JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews USA
……..***……..
5 Stars!
Brogan, an adventurer enmeshed in intrigue, flies a courier service between remote outposts of Amazonia where graft and corruption make mockery of the law.
Intrigue and backstabbing amongst cartel middlemen goaded by greed, turn a hiccup into a stumble that generates into a fall, to begin a slide that snowballs into an avalanche.
Come join them, but beware ‘friends’ who seem with you…but are simply waiting for you to turn your back!
Yes, that was South America in the early nineteen hundreds, and later!
Libby Abbott, Aussie EBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Brogan’s Bella
Brogan met his Isabella Maldonado in Brogan, fell in love with her in Brogans Bust and now brings her to Australia to show her ‘his country’.
This is her story of the journey that took, not the two to three weeks intended, but incarceration in the remote jungles of South-East-Asia, suffering for an indefinite future, the fear, trepidation and yearning that only a hijack can visit on one. They find themselves in the Catch-22 situation of being either embroiled in the cut-throat intrigue of local politics and guerrilla warfare, or facing the cutting of their own throats for even knowing the truths behind the hijack.
The aftermath of the Second World War left South-East-Asia in turmoil, the victorious allies carelessly hasty in ridding themselves of colonial ties in favour of domestic priorities—all, that is, except France. It quickly moved to not only safeguard its French-Indo-Chinese colony but to increase its power in the region.
History has proved that the impetuous haste with which independence was granted by Great Britain to India, Pakistan, Burma and Malaya, by Holland to its Dutch East Indies and by the United States to the Philippines, left each in political turmoil, the bloody aftermath of each still unresolved after sixty years.
France’s re-occupation of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam proved so bloody even from day one, that within ten years, it conceded defeat to leave those nations in continuing bloody civil wars.
It was into these bubbling cauldrons of intrigue and political unrest that Bella and Brogan, so innocently embroiled, are not only forced to take sides, suffer capture, intimidation and humiliation, but discover sympathies and allegiances to leave the peace of each in as much disarray as the peace of the several innocent nations.
5 Stars!
Brogan is at it again. He and his Bella, en-route to Australia, are high-jacked over the Pacific to find themselves doing whatever they must, to survive. I promise you, this book is so full of high adventure and tension it will keep you turning pages—even if you know absolutely nothing about the political situation between Vietnam and France during the 1940’s.
JoEllen, Conger, Conger Book Reviews, USA
……..***……..
Brogan’s and his Bella’s journey back to Australia took not the two or three weeks planned, but incarceration and intimidation, all the fears, suffering and trepidation that only a hijack visits on one.
…so innocently caught up in the catch-twenty-two situation of becoming embroiled in the cut-throat intrigue of jungle politics and guerrilla warfare, or facing the cutting of their own throats for even knowing the truths behind the hijack.
World War Two may have been over for the major world powers, yet the ill-conceived haste with which each rid itself of colonial ties in Asia, consigned every newly independent nation to generations of bloody political and civil war…except maybe France, which re-occupied Indo-China after the Japanese withdrawal, only to drive its three nations even more devastatingly into bloodbaths.
Into such bubbling cauldrons of intrigue and political unrest, Bella and Brogan discover sympathies and allegiances that leave the peace of each in as much disarray as those of the several war-ravaged leading nations.
Libby Abbott, Aussie EBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Misadventure
Once again, Brogan is off on a spine-tingling misadventure, this time in South America.
When Peru’s Prime Minister, backed by both his country’s army and popular opinion, took it on himself to stage a coup d’état against his own government, he sacked all his Ministers and declared parliament void. Brogan and Becky simply happened to be there. They didn’t plan on being swept up in the chaos, any more than would you or I if in their shoes.
And this was but one of many hurdles they must best, especially when Colombia’s dreaded FARC struck, having them fighting for their very lives.
Since severing themselves from the yolk of Spain, or Portugal in Brazil’s case, near every South American nation has been plagued by civil wars and deadly disputes with neighbours—usually over territory or minerals. Political insurrections continue even to the present day. There were so many casualties during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that even today, women outnumber men by two to one. The people of South America have not only the threat of war constantly upsetting their equilibrium, but organised crime. The entire continent has, for many generations, been so racked in discontent as to be recognised as the world’s most crime-infested—and consequently, the most dangerous for travellers.
Yet it remains a unique magnet to adventurous tourists. It can rightfully boast some of the most alluring natural resources of the planet; highest waterfall, widest and most voluminous waterfall, greatest wildlife wetland, longest and most spectacular mountain range, the least explored jungles still home to primitive tribes, and the incredible realisation that here are millions of people still totally unaware of the rest of the world.
Brogan and Becky find unexpected adventure at every turn. This tale reaches out that readers become involved in both their joys and traumas as a variety of unexpected situations entangle them.
So set aside mundane pursuits and let Becky and Brogan take you with them to share their South American discoveries. They indeed prove it a world of misadventure.
5++ Stars!
Once again Brogan is off on a spine-tingling misadventure, this time in South America, the kind that makes you lust to travel with him. Multi-published author Kev Richardson has a way of creating his plots so realistically, you feel you are there. He and his Becky hadn’t counted on kidnapping, armed guards, or drug smuggling This is one love story that will keep you turning pages. A must read.
Please follow Kev Richardson’s website to more Brogan adventures.
JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews USA
……..***……..
5 Mighty Stars!
Best made plans of even seasoned traveller Brogan can come unstuck in South America. Many become spine-chilling adventures, erupting into chaos, the kind to make you lust to travel with him.
They hadn’t counted on FARC taking hostages – he must move diplomatic mountains to find help.
Peru erupts in revolution…train travel over the Altiplano…a car chase across Paraguay…the Missiones…Iguazzu Falls…was Brogan really smuggling guns into Brazil?
Hey mates, so many disasters fall amongst the thrills of travel in such an unstable part of the world.
Libby Abbott – Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Brogan Abroad
A tale of true-life experiences. Brogan plans on none of the three life-threatening adventures thrust upon him. Each destines him, should results not meet expectations, to having his throat slit in some dark alley…
Yet what can a man do, when, to accomplish one, I must fail at another?
He finds himself, whilst running from threats promised firstly by a cocaine-smuggling cartel, secondly by getting involved in smuggling high-profile prostitutes from Thailand into Australia, only to then be unwittingly conscripted as an intelligence pawn in Sudan’s revolution.
All three ‘adventures’ intertwined in this recounting, are true experiences. The real names of the characters involved have been changed in order to preserve true identities.
5+ Stars!
Brogan Abroad sees our hero almost everywhere at once—smuggling sex-flesh here, caught up in revolution there… It may not be the same ‘Brogan’ as Kev Richardson portrayed in his other Brogan stories, but he nonetheless fits the same mold of a devil-may-care adventurer. At first I thought if this Brogan didn’t have ‘bad luck’ he wouldn’t have any luck at all…but then I realized that if it hadn’t been for his luck he surely would have been robbed of more than just his camera in Africa, gotten nailed as a smuggler of exotic women, or had his throat slashed in a darkened alley. I challenge anyone to put this book down once they start reading. Double dare you!
JoEllen – Conger Book Reviews (USA)
……..***……..
5 Stars!
Kev Richardson unveils more intrigue in distant lands…
Brogan Abroad tells three distinctive true tales, threaded into a single adventure. Brogan plans none…all three are thrust upon him and all are life-threatening. Each destines him to having his throat slit in some dark alley…
Yet what can a man do, he laments, when to accomplish one I must fail at another?
While hiding out in Thailand from a Sydney cocaine cartel, he becomes involved in smuggling high-profile prostitutes into Australia…an adventure interrupted when unwittingly used as a courier in The Sudan, a third-world nation counting down hours to bloody revolution.
Wow, what-a-tort fraught situation!
Libby Abbott, Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Beresford Branson series
Pacific Paradox
A World War 2 tale… A well-born but errant British son is despatched from home comforts, to learn from experience, a sense of personal responsibility.
“Get out and don’t come back inside of three years,” he is told. He is given a hundred pounds and a one-way boat ticket to Tahiti.
“Why Tahiti?” he asks.
“Because, lad, the South Sea Islands are as far away as we can send you—a part of the world to surely offer challenge in finding yourself a livelihood. And when you consider your education complete, seeing you now insist on having a better idea of all to do with life than you credit your schoolmasters, your mother or me to have gleaned, you must, if still alive, have also garnered yourself sufficient funds to buy your way back. It is unlikely you can work in French Polynesia, however; being a foreigner, it is likely you can obtain work in some of the British dependencies there.”
“Well how do I find that out?”
“I suggest, dear lad, you make finding that answer, your first challenge. Now off you go.”
That happened in early 1939 and within the year, France as well as England were at war. And within his three year embargo, Japan took war to the Pacific Islands. He finds himself gainfully employed in Guadalcanal when the Japanese invade.
Getting that far had been far off a smooth path—the subterfuge and guile needed in getting free passage out of Papeete and being kidnapped and beaten up in Apia—and finding himself on the high seas visiting most of the island nations before ending up in adventures behind Japanese lines in the Solomon Islands, had all proved somewhat traumatic. Yet he still found time and opportunity to find the love of his life.
Had he really been guilty of helping smuggle secrets to the enemy?
How much closer could one be to actual invasions than coast-watching on Guadalcanal in World War 2’s most significant naval battles and hand to hand jungle fighting?
5 Stars!
Multi-published historical writer, Kev Richardson’s PACIFIC PARADOX, reveals WWII from an Englishman’s perspective. We see the war through the eyes of his worldly naive character Beresford, aristocratic son of Baronet Sir Thomas Branson. Beresford has been sent out into the every-day world to earn his own worldly experiences. From his lucky adventures, to his incredible misadventures, he discovers a whole new attitude toward life. He becomes involved in the war effort in the Pacific Islands. Kev’s accurate historical research is very prominent in this telling. It is a wonderful adventure tale as Berry finally becomes the man his father can respect. It’s a sensitive story of a naïve young man growing into manhood.
JoEllen Conger – Conger Book Reviews USA
……..***……..
5 Huge Stars!
A British nobleman’s errant son is sent off to the South Seas to be blooded. On his way to discovering common sense he stumbles through intrigue, hunger, pangs of love-lust, deceit and loneliness…even kidnap.
He is coast-watching on Guadalcanal when the Japanese invade. Discovering the horrors of what war does to man on one hand, he also discovers how unlikely friendships can be forged on the other.
His front-stall view of the legendary naval battles on Guadalcanal in 1942, indeed blood him.
Libby Abbott – Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
My Red Cross
Beresford Branson, a Red Cross agent in France during German occupation, faces intimidation, fear, love, hate and pleas for help. He is trying to be Father Christmas, Jesus Christ and everybody’s parent, yet has little to give but hope.
My Red Cross is a journey of a young man denied active war duty for his country because of a malaria virus contracted during his Guadalcanal days as a Coast Watcher (Pacific Paradox), through love, hate, intimidation and fear, guilt, regrets and heartache. An Agent for Red Cross, he has the responsibility of delivering satisfactions to people in desperate need of succour.
Trials like the scheming of a Gestapo exacting dreadful torture on helpless souls, the ever present doubts of allegiance, intrigue and faithlessness, plague his every effort. He battles with not only outside pressures but with personal guilt when obligations fall counter to his very instincts.
Where does one draw lines between personal loves and goals when political factions confuse one’s very proclivities?
Especially when one is caught in the tangle of being expected to aid all?
10 out of 5 !!!!!
If I were privileged to award MY RED CROSS written by multi-published Biographical Historian, Kev Richardson, with a review rate from 1 to 5; I would have to give this book a 10! And I do!
Richardson indeed, here, proves himself a Master of Storytelling.
The story of England’s affluently raised Beresford Branson begins when his father, Baronet Sir Thomas Branson of Folly Drift, sends his youngest son out into the South Pacific to become a responsible man (in the first book: PACIFIC PARADOX). Here he served the war effort as a Coast Watcher while the Japanese fleet attacks Guadalcanal, falling in love with Randi Edwards, the daughter of a double agent and spy for Japan.
In this second book of the series, MY RED CROSS, Beresford becomes involved behind enemy lines after the German Army overruns France (1943-44).
He soon learns how to manipulate his friendship with German Colonel Kessler to benefit war victims as he slips from one exciting and dangerous adventure to the next. His boyish heart falls deliriously in love with the beautiful underground leader, La Chat. Until the day liberation comes in Paris…then what comes next? Which woman will lay claim to his heart? The girl at home…or the girl in his bed? What is a young man to do?
JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews, USA
My Red Cross by Kevin Richardson
I was privileged to receive an advance copy of My Red Cross. Much to my satisfaction, the book demonstrates to me anew, how broadening the historical novel genre can be.
As a WWII fan, I believed I’d read just about every aspect of the Nazi invasion and occupation of Europe. But who knew the scope of activities carried out by the brave operatives of the International Red Cross? Having read Richardson’s remarkable rendering, I am left wanting to know more.
This book is a sequel to his novel Pacific Paradox about the coast watchers in the WWII Pacific islands. A young man returns to his home in England with a history of Malaria. This keeps him out of the British services except for a post with the Red Cross. He is sent, green as grass, to France, and given a territory near the coast.
What follows gives the reader a remarkable insight into the workings of, not only the Red Cross, but the French underground. Richardson has clearly done his homework in the writing of this solid work. I heartily recommend it.
Richard Whitten Barnes, Jan. 2013
……..***……..
5 + Stars!
Bang!
Oh my God, what a World War 2 tale is My Red Cross!
It doesn’t simply bring reality to you on every page, it takes you there! You cannot but believe yourself part of it!
It introduces you to every type of person involved in life, from the hearts of love-stricken couples to those of fighting men and women and how they face and survive (some as only one must expect) in the hope of seeing a tomorrow, every day!
You really will never appreciate what that war did for and to some.
Go get it and experience how so many people really lived during those terrible years.
Libby Abbott – Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
A German Stirring
Following Beresford Branson’s adventures in Pacific Paradox and My Red Cross, he here reports to MI5 in the British occupation zone of Germany, on suspected underworld activity during the initial years of endeavouring to wipe out all Nazi influences. Germany was ostensibly being converted to democracy, yet Allied Leaders were found by International Red Cross, at least as guilty of malpractices, as had Germany been accused of during the war.
“Richardson pulls no punches,” says Aussie eBook Reviews, “in accusing the Allied Administration of malpractice and duplicity in the occupation of Germany—that having railed against Nazi lies and inhuman treatment of civilians before and during it, they became as guilty!”
Through 1945-6, more German civilians died of malnutrition, lack of medical attention and brutal forced labour, than their country had lost in armed services during the entire war. How much blame for this genocide should be aimed at the Allied ‘peacemakers’?
“Richardson never lets readers forget that it takes real people fighting for what they believe in, to make history,” says JoEllen of Conger Book Reviews USA.
The Allied Generals won the fighting, yet proved excessively poor at winning the peace.
10 out of 5 !!!!!
Only once have I ever scored a book a ‘10-out-of 5’ Stars…and I thought it could never happen again. I was wrong!
I simply couldn’t put down, A GERMAN STIRRING.
You like History? Kev Richardson makes it up front and personal. It’s history…but this author never lets you forget that it takes real people fighting for what they believe in, to make up History. Great suspense!
Following the close of WWII in devastated Germany, Beresford (Berry) Branson again finds himself working inside enemy territory building on his humanitarian training with the International Red Cross. He has been assigned by Britain’s MI5 to a team assessing effects of military rule in occupied Germany, seeking out subversive underworlds. He is led to even suspect within his very own administration as victorious allies seem bent on breaking every rule in the Geneva Convention Agreement. Can the Allies really be as guilty of as much graft, corruption and duplicity as they accused Germany of, before and during the war?
Keeping the peace between allies became as difficult a job in peacetime, as winning the peace. Beresford could only speculate which government his own colleagues might serve. He had thought he could trust his life with anyone on his team. But, now he isn’t so sure.
JoEllen Conger… Conger Books Reviews USA
5 Stars!
In A GERMAN STIRRING, Richardson pulls no punches in accusing the Allied Administration of malpractice and duplicity in the occupation of Germany after World War 2—that having railed against Nazi lies and inhuman treatment of civilians before and during it, they became as guilty. His humanist views on military decisions affecting even the innocent as humanity suffers, takes one’s breath away. It is indeed a sensitive view on what really happened in Germany between Surrender and the start of the Cold War, with Generals of all sides taking different paths to the restoration of peace.
Libby Abbott – Aussie e-Book Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Beresford at Bay
Beresford at Bay wraps up a fine quartet of Star-Spangled novels by Kev Richardson.
Pacific Paradox (5 Stars!) told how Beresford Branson, reckless son of a British Baronet is banished to the South Pacific to learn responsibility. He finds himself working in Guadalcanal when Japan invades. He is co-opted as a coast-watcher during the most terrifying of World War II naval battles.
My Red Cross earned from Conger Book Reviews, its first ever 10 Star Award! As a Red Cross agent in France during the German occupation, Beresford faces intimidation, fear, love, hate and pleas for help. He tries being Father Christmas, Jesus Christ and everybody’s mentor, yet has little to give but hope.
A German Stirring won another 10 Stars out of 5 by Conger Book Reviews !
An MI5 Special Forces agent in post-war Germany, Beresford vets underground attempts to re-establish Nazism and finds himself the onion in the burger as the Allied Control Council blunders its way through malpractice and duplicity in restructuring a new Germany.
Beresford at Bay (5+ Stars!), finds him in even deeper disarray as Communist versus Democratic bickering sees the governing body collapse. The wonderful dream of building a united Germany from the ashes of its Nazi history, itself dies a sorry death as the country divides into two warlike Zones. As the Cold War of Words ensures Germany will remain divided for as much as two further generations, Beresford needs to look to his own future—sorting out the romantic tangle he had been suffering, that his own future has better prospects than the Allies achieved in rebuilding Germany.
5+ Stars!
Multi-published Historical author, Kev Richardson brings out his fourth book of Beresford Branson’s life during WWII. This author has a unique way of presenting the individual people behind the making of history. I highly recommend this book, especially for history lovers.
An active operative of the British M15 Special Force 8673, he must juggle his love-life between his war-time duties and his love for Yvette, or La Chat as she had been known in the French underground but now a member of Sécurité Français. While nurturing the newly divided Germany, struggling to feed its starving populous, Berry dreams of a time when he can escape his wartime duties, to marry his true love, back in the family estate, Folly Drift.
Kev Richardson brings us another 5+ Historical…
JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews, USA
~ * ~
5 Stars!
Beresford at Bay is a magnificent finish to Richardson’s Beresford Branson Series.
Beresford finds himself in even deeper disarray as political bickering in the Allied Control Council leads to Germany’s governing body’s collapse. The wonderful dream of building a united Germany from the ashes of its Nazi history, itself dies a sorry death as the country splits into two warlike Zones. Beresford needs to look to his own future, sorting out the romantic tangle he had been suffering, that his future has better prospects than Europe seems headed for.
A sparkling piece of work!
Libby Abbott, Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
What If?
Adolph Hitler’s monumental error in invading Russia when he did, very likely lost him World War II. In June 1941, Great Britain was reeling with unreadiness to meet an invasion. Factories in Britain had been switched from manufacturing peaceful products and food, to turn out munitions, only to have Germany immediately wipe out the major ones in day and night bombing raids.
Germany was also then, well advanced in nuclear arms and rocket weaponry. Russia, with already a peace treaty with Japan, had aided Germany’s swamping of Poland and was giving every indication that its millions of men-at-arms sweeping into the Middle East, was leaving Germany at full strength, to invade Britain. Why Hitler did not proceed with his initial plan to quickly subdue Britain and gain its manufacturing facilities rather than having to bomb them, time would have quickly defeated the British.
What If?… graphically illustrates how, with Britain subdued, there would have been no D-Day and no US forces in Europe. It was that USA had to split its manpower into two fronts that provided Japan opportunity to strengthen its drive into the Pacific—strengthen rather than falter in holding the Aleutians and taking Hawaii and Australia.
Today’s atlases may well have looked markedly different.
5+ Stars!
Multi-published historical writer, Kev Richardson, writes a ‘What If…’ tale of WWII, centered in Australia. Think about it. What would have happened if Adolf Hitler hadn’t decided to take on Russia? What if…Japan hadn’t been driven out of Australia? What if…America hadn’t joined the fray with their Atomic bomb that forced the Japanese surrender? As a world encompassing war…whose flag would we be saluting today if…victory had gone differently? This book is definitely a 5+ thought provoking read.
JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews, USA
What If ? 5+ Stars!!
Richardson, in this fantastic historical, paints a clear picture of what could have happened to the world had Hitler not attacked Russia when he did, but continued having its manpower strength with him rather than against him.
In mid 1941, Britain was reeling with unreadiness to defend itself against invasion, he writes. As was the USA when Japan attacked it in December of that year, he hints. Nazi Germany was on a roll and had Hitler added the forces used against Russia, to those already active on his western front, nothing could have stopped him taking Britain. While Russia subdued the Middle East, Germany could well have then, aided Japan in its fight against the USA, saving Japan from being turned around.
Japan could well have then captured the entire Pacific as Germany had captured the entire continent of Europe. America alone could not have stopped that happening.
A brilliant expectation of how the war could have flowed, had Hitler not made that monumental error.
Libby Abbott, Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Shadows
A tremendously exciting tale of the French Resistance during the German Occupation in World War II. Featuring every one of the senses, it grabs the reader and transplants us in Saumur on the Loire where the tale is set. Surprise after surprise greet Adele (or should that be Julie or Brown Owl?) and her family. And is brother a black sheep renegade gone over to the Nazis?
It strikes fear, love, hate, terror and glee into all Resistants every day in their lives as they plot to help their country break the unique Occupation demands suffered by so many, every day.
A must read for every soul with a spunky beat in their heart.
5 Stars!
It seems I cannot stop awarding every Kev Richardson novel I read, 5 Stars.
Shadows is a tremendously exciting tale of the French Resistance during the German Occupation in World War II. Featuring every one of the senses, it grabs the reader and transplants us in Saumur on the Loire where the tale is set. Surprise after surprise greet Adele (or should that be Julie or Brown Owl?) and her family, particularly brother Guy (or Gerard), the black sheep renegade?
It strikes fear, love, hate, terror and glee into all Resistants every day in their lives as they plot to help their country break the unique Occupation demands suffered by so many, every day.
A must read for every soul with a spunky beat in their heart.
Libby Abbot, Aussie eBook Reviews
5 Stars!!!!
Shadows is written honoring the bravery of the many men and women who dealt from behind-the-scenes the atrocities of WWII. The book, Shadows, as seen through the eyes of Malcolm Harding and family, depicts how fighting a war can separate even loving members of a close-knit family, and how strangers of-the-day bonded together, determined to win back their country’s freedom. Shadow is an exemplary tale about the Fabrille Family and their blow-by-blow struggle against wartime atrocities.
JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews, USA
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Biographies
Gerard Rawes
A true tale of a man’s rags to riches life—not in the traditionally inferred ‘Cinderella’ sense, yet maybe not too far from it. Gerard discovered that life could transport a man from one situation into another as if sucked up by a tsunami to be tossed on to the beach of a new world.
A historian writing about real people finds recorded in a motley array of archives, dates and places pointing the directions of his characters’ lives. Yet when events happened some two hundred years ago, we can but cogitate and hypothesise on what occupied those characters’ minds—about what happened in their private worlds—how and why they were drawn into the situations recorded as ‘events’ in their lives.
The events in Gerard’s life are mostly those of Birth, Baptism, Marriage and Death records and various English Census results. Some facts unearthed tell us of his education in youth and of his career life and abodes.
The early to mid eighteenth century in England was a time of change—too early for the industrial revolution, yet with the Napoleonic wars raging and politics discovering emergence from the Divine-Right of Kings, the first traces of a middle-class were discernable in history’s pages.
Gerard found himself delivered by fate’s fortunes, from a mediocre rural beginning into affluence—introduced by chance opportunity into the London social scene as tailor to the nation’s nobility.
5 Stars !
A yokel in Savile Row—once again multi-published historical writer, Kev Richardson, brings us living history, this time as seen through the eyes of Gerard Rawes, a London tailor for gentlemen, during the Napoleonic Wars… and beyond. This author has a way of making history come alive, with a touch of wit woven through the personal accounts of his characters. If you enjoy reading about history, this author is someone you must read.
JoEllen Conger… Conger Books Reviews USA
……..***……..
5 Stars !
A ‘true-tale’ of man’s rags to riches life, not in the traditionally inferred ‘Cinderella’ sense, yet maybe not too far from it.
Gerard Rawes discovers how life can pluck a man from one situation and drop him into another, as if sucked up by a tsunami and tossed on to the beach of a new world. In England’s mid-eighteenth century, the emerging industrial revolution catapults a man out of a world of serfdom into social London.
Your author illustrates how archival records in Britain, don’t lie. It’s a true, worthy, exciting tale.
Libby Abbott – Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
An Epic Life
A true tale of an adventurous couple reaching across the world to fulfil a life’s dream—a major achievement in the mid nineteenth century.
The evolution of the steam engine revolutionised both time and travel. It was the whisk that developed the industrial revolution, propelling Great Britain along the track to become the world’s most powerful nation. The railway industry became, for many, a lifetime career through generations—in Britain and the antipodes.
An Epic Life selects two men and two women from different lifestyles in different parts of England, caught up in the frenetic race to criss-cross Britain and its colonies with this new, fast and efficient means of commuting. Their lives become dedicated to it, facing not only the adventures involved, but the risks.
What emerges on the world scene is not only the industrial revolution but the by-product of it—society’s Middle Class.
5 Stars !
A continuing historical account of this extensive ancestral family tree down through the evolving times of the industrial revolution—steam engines and hand crafted train coaches and the ever spreading spider-webbing of railroad tracks upon a raw new continent. This author has an enchanting way of portraying the reality of living, breathing people behind the facts and dates found in your history books.
He transports you through the laughter and pathos of a family bent on taking care of their own as they build a proud history. It was an era when family members stuck together through thick and thin—happiness, contentment or grief, determined to survive each new challenge.
JoEllen Conger… Conger Books Reviews USA
……..***……..
5 Worthy Stars!
A true tale of two adventurous couples reaching across the world to fulfil life’s dreams…a major achievement in the mid-nineteenth century.
The evolution of the steam engine propelled Great Britain along its track to become the most powerful nation in the nineteenth century world. The railway industry, for many families, became a lifetime career. In An Epic Life, two couples from different lifestyles, realise a dream as their lives whisk together in a froth-and-bubble adventure. It creates on the far side of the world, a dynasty.
This true tale tells of all the challenges, their excitement, adventure, hardships and successes.
A true Epic.
Libby Abbott – Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
A Welcome War
“World War 2 was the most welcome and alluring war of all time.”
A ten-year-old lad begins the saga of his next six years influenced more by military strategy, political power and bathos than by parents or mentors. As a means of discovering how people react to adverse situations and the fundamental lessons of history and geography are taught him in the most exciting ways. To put it in his own words, “It beats schoolwork, hands down!”
His impassioned sense of wonder cause him to question what fate can bring to people’s lives, how many different reactions can ensue from any one incident. His experiences as a lad growing up during World War 2 and the influences of the thousands of incidences reaching his eyes and ears, to all of which he seeks answers, establish the path his life will take.
If you love history, wrote JoEllen of Conger Book Reviews, USA, I highly recommend you read all of Richardson’s extensive historical writings.
5+ Stars ! Finalist in the International Epic Award, 2011
Multi-published historical writer, Kev Richardson, has a way of bringing the history of his homeland, up front and personal. A Welcome War presents a young lad’s impressions and compulsion to follow the happenings of World War II. He recounts his personal translation of the war that changed his life. As a young teenager it influenced his future more by military strategy, political power and bathos than by parents or mentors. In discovering history and geography, he finds the lessons graphic indeed.
To use his own words, “It beats schoolwork, hands-down!”
JoEllen Conger… Conger Books Reviews USA
……..***……..
Award Winner! 5+ Stars !
World War 2 was the most welcome and alluring war of all time.
A ten-year-old lad begins the saga of his next six years influenced more by military strategy, political power and bathos than by parents or mentors.
As a means of realising how people react to adverse situations, and in discovering history and geography, he finds the lessons graphic indeed. To use his own words, “It beats schoolwork, hands down!”
Libby Abbott – Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Faith and Frenzy
Richard Bray’s life has him, from birth, inveigled in religious mayhem as England’s monarchs embark on a see-saw of doctrines—now Catholic—now Protestant, with dissenters burned at the stake. Within the Anglican church, factions divide such that Parliament and Royalty erupt in civil war.
Hadn’t the English had enough of invaders, the Vikings, Normans, Picts and Scots without their world now erupting in religious mayhem? Can Richard’s family avoid division? Were their decisions wise? Did either side win?
This tale of love and hate in the name of God exposes many travails in 17th century England.
5+ Stars!
Multi-published historical writer, Kev Richardson’s slant on 17th Century history comes across as very personally realistic; factions of the ruling class fight to maintain a hold on religious beliefs. In Faith And Frenzy he introduces Richard Bray, wife, Beatrix and their extensive family who live through and survive England’s bloody Civil War.
If you like to live the history you are reading, this book is extremely well presented. I highly recommend it.
JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews, USA
……..***……..
5 Stars!
In Faith and Frenzy, Kev Richardson, proven storyteller, transports you into the middle ages, into hearts and minds of bewildered innocents as their world erupts.
Hadn’t Englanders had enough of invaders, the Vikings, Normans, Picts and Scots without their world now erupting in religious mayhem and civil war? Richardson paints anguish, ordeal and dolour as families opt for different sides. Can either win?
Another fine work from this writer’s canny sense of perception.
Libby Abbott, Aussie e-Book Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Romance
A Home for Old Ladies
Evan Robson yearned to rebuild his shattered family.
Maggie seemed right for him in every way except being a career girl lacking desire for motherhood. His young children lived with a couple he couldn’t help but feel wanting, as influences on them. He thirsted for opportunity of becoming a more direct influence, yet needed a child-caring woman to share that life.
Both thought they had the difficult answer until a rug was pulled from beneath their plans—yet a Home for Old Ladies became the vehicle to help. The work is a love story not only between Evan and Maggie but between them and restoring the derelict old home to something the Old Ladies could only have dreamed of.
Stanford Lodge had a proud past and their goal was to re-present it to the Old Ladies, as its heritage deserved. In the process, the rebuilding of the family, each contributing to ‘the cause’, seemed to take its hoped for course. Yet what private thoughts linger in each mind? What challenges to the love in each, spell trouble on every tomorrow’s horizon?
5+ Stars!
Kev Richardson outdoes himself in telling the tale of lasting love that inspired his life. In A Home For Old Ladies, he touches your heartstrings recounting Evan and Maggie’s tale of inner-fire at first sight, the joy of a lasting relationship as they follow their individual careers and cozy evenings by an open hearth.
The extensive renovation of the family’s estate, Stanford Lodge, is the very power that holds the family unit together until daughter, Leanne and her brother, Paul grow up to follow their own paths. I fell in love with Evan Robson and his sweet relationship with Maggie. The love scenes are so dear, so tender and so touching that I wished I were she.
JoEllen Conger – Conger Book Reviews – USA
5 Stars!
A Home For Old Ladiesis restored from derelict to what its time-worn patients would have imagined of their hospice in its heyday. They had watched it die. New generation lovers use those old ladies’ dreams as inspiration for restoration. Such labours of love exemplify how togetherness, understanding, conjoining—all the essences of sharing can help remould an already forgotten family. Every essence of solidarity proves essential in the renaissance of such a home, the bonding of family love that undoubtedly inspired its creation.
Richardson overlays personal experiences on such a backdrop, sharing with his Maggie, an inspiring tale of absorbing all such negatives as doubt, insecurity and fear of rejection.
Libby Abbott, Aussie eBook Reviews
A Home for Old Ladies is a charming read from the first to the last page, a story of an Australian family in the 1970’s who strove to make each day count. Their love and support of each other made a difference. It also brought them sorrow. For a glimpse of Australia during the 1970’s, this is the book to read.
Katherine Pym, author of Historical London in the 1660’s and one French Revolution novel
by Wings ePress
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Summy Lu.
An uneducated woman’s motherly drive to rear her children under great hardship, not only bearing and bringing them up during wartime to lead successful lives, yet fosters other young ones in need of care. It illustrates how one can put personal problems aside and to overcome lack of education, training all children to respect the needs of others. A capital contribution from a male novelist, to a female’s natural urge to succour the young into a responsible future.
5 Stars!!!
Well known multi-published historical writer, Kevin Richardson’s storylines have never disappointed me. He writes this tribute to Summy Lu, a resourceful woman during a time of war. Summy Lu, although living in a time when it wasn’t popular to educate the woman-folk, nonetheless used her natural instincts to keep her large family together. Richardson presents another vivid war-time account of one woman’s struggle against the times. This gripping tale is a powerful acknowledgement to the ingenuity of one woman who survived during a time when war’s influence was tearing families apart. This book is a keeper. I highly recommend it.
JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews, USA
5 Stars for Summy Lu!
Kev Richardson does it again! This time it is an uneducated woman’s motherly drive not only bearing and bringing up under hardships, her own children to lead successful lives, yet fosters others in need of care. It illustrates how one can put personal problems aside to overcome her lack of education in order to train all children to consider others.
A capital contribution from a male novelist, to a female’s natural urge to succour children.
Libby Abbott – Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Turtle Island
Turtle Island – Synopsis
During the 1980s and 90s, Turtle Island off the west coast of Fiji’s Viti Levu held not only the South Pacific record of ‘Playground for the Wealthy’ but the most unique of resorts in the world.
Harpers & Queen, Great Britain’s renowned magazine for the elite, listed it in their Top 10 Hotels of the World. The resort was a major feature in its Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
An exclusive hotel for only those in the world who could afford to be a ‘guest’? A hotel with only a three-walled room on a beach as a guest lounge? A hotel with no dining room? A hotel in which guests are requested not to pack jewellery or clothing other than for relaxing on a beach? In which once your holiday was paid for on booking, not a coin, banknote nor credit card is accepted, yet every need and more is provided? Where your choice of Champagne, beer, wine, hard liquor or spa water would be restocked into your bure’s (native beach cabin’s) refrigerator each morning while you breakfasted? Its free well-stocked help-yourself bar being open twenty-four-seven? Where guests are free to not only inspect hotel kitchens or any sort of workshop at will, or even care to don an apron and help out? An entire island lacking motor cars or bikes, television, radio, cinema or telephone (except a single line on the manager’s desk, available for guests only in a dire emergency)? Where children are admitted only during school holiday periods and for which tending carers are supplied free for every daylight and evening hour? Where the only name every guest is known by is his or her nominated Given name or Nick-name, surnames and titles being strictly taboo… where only twenty-four guests at a time are serviced by thirty-six front-of house-staff and forty background staffers.
Unique? Indeed, yet solidly booked out for months in advance by those wishing total reprieve from pressures of home or work, either to return for subsequent holidays or those accepted in advance by referral of past guests. Whilst medical attention is available on the island twenty-four-seven, the island’s own float-plane is available in the event of any serious illness or accident, to make the thirty-minute flight to the mainland. Many a guest has found themself in a situation of realising this or that couple is of either Royal or Presidential standard, just seeking an informal recess.
How, what and why all this conundrum?
Just dream of paradise as you read on…
… It all came about when American Richard Evanson lost his business and family. Business sense when discovering alcohol and the pressures of business had stolen all but his millions of dollars from his life, including his marriage and family life, he turned to regaining a life of sanity…he faced great hardship. He searched the world for a deserted island where he could, as might a hermit. He saw one advertised, went to inspect its five hundred acres of absolute loneliness, ample fresh water and fruit trees aplenty, and bought it. After seven years suffering loneliness yet overcoming liquor and sadness, he was approached to rent out his island’s beauty for the making of the movie Blue Lagoon, the early black and white version. He acceded. Then when approached to make the Blue Lagoon in colour, he agreed again.
Top class native bures had to be built for superstars and moviemaking big-shots, as did machinery for adding electricity and kitchens needed for first-class service. When the movie was finished, Richard bought all the additions and opened what those who could afford it, the world’s most wonderful ‘dropout’ where every one of the twenty-four guests were ‘spoiled rotten’!
Turtle Island readers will find themselves truly transported in this excellent read.
5 Stars !
To bring Mark Carmody’s shattered nerves back on line in time to face the European Masters Snooker Championship after being viciously attacked by a psycho, cricket-bat wielding punk, the young thirty-two year old snooker professional is seeking a notable diversion. He is recommended to invest his shattered nerves to a rich man’s ten day holiday at Turtle Island’s Blue Lagoon.
Yes indeed, the same location where the movie film of The Blue Lagoon was recorded. While there, Mark meets his soul-mate, and the rest is history. I highly recommend it. It isn’t always war that changes history.
JoEllen, Conger Books Reviews, USA
5 Stars !!!
Kev Richardson’s Turtle Island, the famous Fijian resort on every tongue and in every yearning breast during the 1980s and 1990s, claimed by Harpers and Queen magazine as “One the 10 top hotels of the World”, is a must for every Romance reader on the planet… and every one of its lovers. Classified fiction is only that some names have been changed, yet every incident and every character is based on the real life experience of Kev and wife Maggie’s two visits during their lucky lives.
Highly recommended !!! is my advice.
Libby Abbott – Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand
Historical Fantasy
What If?
Adolph Hitler’s monumental error in invading Russia when he did, very likely lost him World War II. In June 1941, Great Britain was reeling with unreadiness to meet an invasion. Factories in Britain had been switched from manufacturing peaceful products and food, to turn out munitions, only to have Germany immediately wipe out the major ones in day and night bombing raids.
Germany was also then, well advanced in nuclear arms and rocket weaponry. Russia, with already a peace treaty with Japan, had aided Germany’s swamping of Poland and was giving every indication that its millions of men-at-arms sweeping into the Middle East, was leaving Germany at full strength, to invade Britain. Why Hitler did not proceed with his initial plan to quickly subdue Britain and gain its manufacturing facilities rather than having to bomb them, time would have quickly defeated the British.
What If?… graphically illustrates how, with Britain subdued, there would have been no D-Day and no US forces in Europe. It was that USA had to split its manpower into two fronts that provided Japan opportunity to strengthen its drive into the Pacific—strengthen rather than falter in holding the Aleutians and taking Hawaii and Australia.
Today’s atlases may well have looked markedly different.
5+ Stars!
Multi-published historical writer, Kev Richardson, writes a ‘What If…’ tale of WWII, centered in Australia. Think about it. What would have happened if Adolf Hitler hadn’t decided to take on Russia? What if…Japan hadn’t been driven out of Australia? What if…America hadn’t joined the fray with their Atomic bomb that forced the Japanese surrender? As a world encompassing war…whose flag would we be saluting today if…victory had gone differently? This book is definitely a 5+ thought provoking read.
JoEllen, Conger Book Reviews, USA
What If ? 5+ Stars!!
Richardson, in this fantastic historical, paints a clear picture of what could have happened to the world had Hitler not attacked Russia when he did, but continued having its manpower strength with him rather than against him.
In mid 1941, Britain was reeling with unreadiness to defend itself against invasion, he writes. As was the USA when Japan attacked it in December of that year, he hints. Nazi Germany was on a roll and had Hitler added the forces used against Russia, to those already active on his western front, nothing could have stopped him taking Britain. While Russia subdued the Middle East, Germany could well have then, aided Japan in its fight against the USA, saving Japan from being turned around.
Japan could well have then captured the entire Pacific as Germany had captured the entire continent of Europe. America alone could not have stopped that happening.
A brilliant expectation of how the war could have flowed, had Hitler not made that monumental error.
Libby Abbott, Aussie eBook Reviews
Note Paperbacks - all titles
- + If in North America, all above is applicable
- + If in Australaia, [email protected]. Greg may have stock and will quote price including mail
- + If in Thailand, [email protected]. Kev will deliver in Chiang Mai, or mail to other areas.
- + If elsewhere, [email protected]. Depending on where you live, Kev may have cheaper prices than from USA, by mailing from his stock in Thailand