The Ghost
at the window

Orange Pip Books, 2020

Young Janey Wiggins lives a desperate life in London's East End at the close of the nineteenth century. With little education and fewer prospects, she has no hope of escaping the grinding poverty, constant hunger, and ever-present danger of life on the street -- that is, until a chance meeting with famed detective Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. Watson. Hired on as Holmes's apprentice "Irregular," Janey turns adversity to her advantage, becoming Holmes’s eyes and ears on the hostile East End streets. As she and her friends investigate the mysterious appearance of a ghost in the upper window of a local home, Janey discovers the very real truth that “no one is no one.” But when her theory of the case clashes with Holmes’s and a child’s life may be on the line, will she find the courage to act?   

An early-years novel for readers 8 and up.

 
 
 
 

A LAnd so wilD

Carnation Books, 2018

In 1845, the HMS Vanguard under the command of Captain William Caulderson departed England on a voyage of discovery to find a Northwest Passage through the perilous arctic waters separating the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It was never heard from again. Five years later, Captain David Maxwell of the Serapis sets sail to recover the Vanguard and determine the fate of his former commander – and battle demons from his past. Naturalist Embleton Hall, aboard on a scientific mission to catalogue arctic fauna, has demons of his own to face. Together, they journey inexorably forward to a terrible discovery, while their families left home in London face trials of their own.

Through a series of letters, log entries, found documents, and oral histories, readers piece together a tale of physical survival and mental fortitude: a story, ultimately, about the power of stories to make and remake us all.