The third of Monica Dickens'' autobiographica l books describes her time as cub reporter on the Downingham Post, a long established small-town paper with a steady cir culation and not much sympathy with the innovations of its j unior reporter. '...
The summer is over and Rose Wood leaves the Wood Briar Hotel for school. Missing the summer buzz and her freedom, and with several weeks passing by quietly since her magical adventure with the Great Gray Horse, she worries that her mission as the me...
It is October but, despite cold and rainy weather, life at the Wood Briar Hotel is busy. With school being in full swing and her weekends occupied by helping her parents at the guesthouse, Rose has her hands full. Things get even busier and Rose'...
Since the beginning of time, Favour, the mystical horse, had been coming to earth to rescue the victims of evil and injustice, using living people as messengers to carry out his work. People like Rose, at this special age when anything is possible. W...
Being brought up by an overbearing, competitive mother has left Virginia with an altered view of men and relationships. She rushed in to marriage to escape her mother, but her new husband, Joe, is difficult and unpredictable, but Virginia is determin...
Orphaned at the age of fourteen, Daniel is brought up by a distant and cold relative. After his expulsion from Eton his ashamed guardian, in an attempt to bury the scandal, sends the troubled boy to another distant relative in Italy. There, Daniel ha...
Carrie, Tom, Em and Michael Fielding are at the mercy of their rotten Uncle Rudolph after a fire leaves them homeless, with their mother in hospital and their father abroad at sea. Uncle Rudolph and his vain wife Val reluctantly take the children in...
With their parents working on a boat in the Mediterranean, Tom, Carrie, Em and Michael have learnt to look after themselves " and their menagerie of animals in their tumble-down house at World's End. As their Uncle Rudolph threatens to sell the...
Tom, Carrie, Em and Michael are still living on their own at World's End. In between wondering where the next meal will come from, and trying to avoid interfering grown-ups, they are never short of fun and excitement. Carrie cannot stand to see a...
There is a place at World's End for any furry or feathered friend in need. The Fielding children live in a rambling old house, packed full of animals. Best of all " there are no grown-ups! Mum and dad are off on adventures of their own, which m...
When Lily and Ida meet on a flight to America, they embark on a relationship that is to see them through two very different marriages.
Lily wants passionately to help people, and to experience romance and adventure at the same time. Fallin...
It isn't easy being born during The Great War. A young mother, desperate and alone, leaves her newborn on a church doorstep, whilst another dies in childbirth surrounded by wealth and family. Both baby girls are brought to the children's home...
What drives you to be a Samaritan? Is it the need to help others, or are you responding to a damaged part of yourself? The Listeners follows the stories of those in need, and those that answer their calls. Billie, drinking away her loneliness, dials ...
The Colonel, owner of Follyfoot, the Home of Rest for Horses, has been ill and has to go away to convalesce. Dora and Steve are left in charge, with the strict instruction, 'Don't buy any horses'. But when Dora sees the rangy, cream-coloured lame hor...
Tim Kendall lives alone, works in a department store, and doesn't have any friends. Life can seem pretty bleak when you're a 23 year old loner. But inside of his mind, Tim is a warrior, a hero, on great and daring adventures.
When ...
Dora is invited out to America to help set up a home of rest for horses. When she leaves and is given a horse to take back to Follyfoot, she can't believe her luck. But once they're home things start to go badly wrong. One of the horses falls ill. An...
'Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more bypath meadows where you may innocently linger, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave.' So wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. Christine feels bound to agree. 'My w...
'All's well' at The Sanctuary, the country home of William and Dorothy Taylor. A haven of tranquility for their family and friends, the magnificent public gardens of the estate are their pride and joy, and an enchantment to the steady stream of visit...
It is the end of WW II and the household of Mrs. North, a well-to-do widow with a country cottage, is very busy. War circumstances brought both of her daughters home: loud but good-hearted tomboy, Violet, and highly-strung and over sensitive Heather ...
Lieutenant-Commander, the hero of this novel, is axed from the Navy at the age of thirty-six, one of many thousands obliged to re-plan their lives as the result of cuts in the armed services. A widower with a small daughter, he has no experience or k...
Rose Wood is almost thirteen and and lives in the Wood Briar Hotel, a cosy country guest house near the sea, which she helps run with her parents. But Rose, although favourite with all the guests and loved by her parents, feels very ordinary: she is ...
Monica Dickens's novel, first published in 1965, opens in a Juvenile court in London. One of the young offenders is a sixteen-year-old girl, Kate, who is described as being in need of care and protection. In the court is a girl only slightly olde...
The world is changing, and this will not, unfortunately, pass Leonard Motley by. At 72 Chepstow Villas lives the Motley family: Leonard, the Assistant Manager of Whiteley's, his gentle wife Gwen, 'new woman' daughter Madge and son Dicky....
When a six-lane highway is built to carry the traffic to and from Cape Cod, it slices through a farm and leaves the old wooden yellow farmhouse on one side and the barn on the other, with the only means of communication a tunnel just wide enough to a...