Michael E Wills

The lives of the four children at Clifftop Farm become very difficult and dangerous when their beloved collie, Billy, gets into serious trouble. The youngsters are compelled to devise a plan to rescue their dog. However, to get the crucial evidence they require, they must outsmart a group of criminals. Unexpected assistance emerges from two surprising quarters: an Italian prisoner of war and a sergeant in a commando regiment stationed near to the farm. In a race against time, will the children succeed in locating the vital information needed to secure the dog's safety?

A novel based on the true story of a Viking raider who, over 30 years, acquired a fortune in English silver. In the churchyard of the village of Orkesta, just north of the city of Stockholm, there are two eleventh century rune stones. One of them, in a few brief words, tells the world of the extraordinary achievements of Ulf of Borresta, who lived nearby. During a long career as a Viking raider, he became extremely rich on the proceeds of extortion: Danegeld. The carved runes mention the names of real Norse historical figures with whom he ravaged the English countryside. These names can be dated and the vicious raids and bloody battles where the Danegelds were won, identified.

Aaron Mew is a seventeen year-old apprentice blacksmith living in a small English village, in the late eighteenth century. His life is simple yet secure, until the day when he volunteers to take the place of his father on an errand for the squire. The country boy is wrenched from the environment in which he grew up and thrust into a world of ruffians, drunks, criminals and disgraced professionals - part of the army of George III. An army desperately short of men, but with the huge ambition to quell the rebellion in America and to retain the country under British rule. After relentless training, Aaron's regiment, the 62nd Regiment of Foot, is posted to Canada. There, fighting side by side with First Nation braves and German allies, the boy soldier becomes a hardened warrior. The Wessex Turncoat tells the story of an ambitious military campaign and the fate of a regiment which was sacrificed mainly because of the vanity and intransigence of an English general.

When one of their friends is captured and sold into slavery in the land of the Rus, the children of the old chieftain and their comrades decide to risk everything to rescue him. Little do they know what awaits them when they embark on the Viking ship, the 'Eagle'. In addition to the dangers of the sea voyage, they must face the villainy of a traitor, marauding pirates and robbers, before they end up in a seemingly hopeless situation as slaves in a quarry. To add to their problems, they learn that they have provoked the anger of the new chieftain of their island home and have been banished.

This book is the product of a group of brothers, sisters and cousins who got the idea that perhaps grandma and grandpa could run an on-line school for them during the lock-down in Spring 2020. In Nature Studies the teachers and children researched the names and descriptions of the wild flowers they found in field work. The presentations were edited and are collected here.

In 2009, road builders working on a new road to Weymouth, UK, discovered a shallow grave. In it were fifty-four headless skeletons. Research showed these were the remains of men from northern Europe who were buried in the 10th Century. Who were they and what happened to them? Finn's Fate is a novel which attempts to solve the mystery. It tells the story of three brothers in tenth century Scandinavia. Their home is north of the Arctic Circle in an isolated region populated by the Sami, the Laplanders. The living is harsh and the climate unforgiving. After a disastrous fire at their homestead, they decide to ignore their family's wishes and abandon their home. The young men embark on a journey to find a better life. They undertake a lengthy odyssey through unfriendly territory and dangerous seas. Their quest eventually leads them to join the crew of the Viking vessel "Ulf", the wolf. Through storms and battles they support each other and become increasingly wealthy as they raid the unprotected villages and ports on the British coast. Their success leads them to a dangerous level of confidence and they embark on one raid too many. The brothers find themselves drawn in to series of events from which not all of them can escape.

The year is 950 AD and the story starts in the town of Birka on an island in the great lake which covers a vast area inland of what is today Stockholm. It was a wealthy town at the centre of an international trading network where merchants from as far afield as Turkey, Russia and Ireland met to buy, sell and barter.The wealth of the island also attracted unwelcome visitors and frequently the Birka warriors had to defend their homes and families against gangs of Viking raiders. The warriors always managed to vanquish the attackers until one day they were tricked by the most feared and fiendish foes, the Jomsviking. These raiders had their base on an island north of what is today Poland and roamed the Baltic waters looting coastal towns and capturing men, women and children to sell in slave markets in Europe and the Orient.When the adults from the town were kidnapped by the Jomsviking raiders, Ahl, Ingir and their friends manage to avoid capture. They set off in pursuit of the raiders' ships on a quest to rescue the island prisoners. They avoid capture by a treacherous sea captain and eventually in a dramatic action, manage to free the prisoners.

Scottie, a decadent university administrator with a weakness for drink and women, visits his daughter Tina who is studying in Aberystwyth. She wants nothing to do with him because of the shabby way he has treated his ex-wife. After a heavy drinking session, he murders an injured IRA man he finds on the beach and steals the documents the man was carrying. The IRA cell try to hunt him down to recover the papers and exert pressure on him by kidnapping his daughter. Despite his cowardice, he decides that he will do one decent thing in his life and try to rescue his daughter. With the help of three university students he decodes the documents, discovers the IRA arms cache and then does a deal to recover Tina. The deal results in her freedom and his death.