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BAPTON BOOKS
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What’s newest; and what’s to come
New Fiction from Mr Wemyss, in the Village Tales series
The latest instalments in Mr Wemyss’ Village Tales series are out:
Ye Little Hills Like Lambs:
We are excited to advert you the news of Mr Wemyss, His Latest.
Thank God for our little Word Witch, without whom this should never have been possible.
The beloved Village Tales continue:
The Downland parishes take centre stage, with Fr Noel Paddick having two new curates and an expanded benefice; and there being the usual crises ... and the usual combined response, of Grace and, on the secular side, His Grace the duke of Taunton, roaring as ever.
Et ego in Arcadia.... The Downland parishes are safely gathered in to the Woolfonts combined benefice. January 2016 begins quietly and contentedly: the villages are recovering from panto season and Christmas, His Grace hasn't done anything outrageous, and Professor the baroness Lacy and Prof. Farnaby are eager to return, come Springtide, to the archaeological survey....
All is calm.
And in the next six months, there shall be tragedy, and crime, and dirty dealings, and a scholarly discovery which rocks the Downlands and the academic world; and it shall take all of Canon Paddick's saintliness, all of the duke's cunning, and all of Lady Lacy's formidable wisdom, to bring the District through and see all right in the end.
Simply another half of the year in the Woolfonts and Downlands, really.
The beloved Village Tales series continues, in this latest volume, amidst the sheep and the illimitable Downs and the incalculable past....
The Day Thou Gavest:
Four-and-twenty January hours, midnight to midnight, in the Woolfonts; foaling and the imminence of lambing season, births and deaths, plans, projects, and pints down the Boar.
Old friends: the duke (when pried away from TMS and the Test Match coverage), Canon Paddick, Sher Mirza, Teddy and Edmond, Gwen and the Breener (and the twins): and new, in the Downland parishes and on the little farms, go the noiseless tenor of their ways, as the sheep huddle and the beer is brewed and the modern steam locomotives shunt. Peace is upon the land, and the lighted windows of a Wintertide evening promise home and warmth.
Come: spend a day in the Woolfonts.
Evensong: Tales from Beechbourne, Chickmarsh, & the Woolfonts.
In paperback, it is available in Parts I (Nunc Dimittis) and II (Te lucis ante terminum) and in the Omnibus Edition, as follows:
Part I, Nunc Dimittis: Amazon UK; Amazon US
Part II: Te lucis ante terminum: Amazon UK; Amazon US
Omnibus Edition: Amazon UK; Amazon US;
and at all other Amazon national and regional sites.
Electronically, it is available in Parts I (Nunc Dimittis) and II (Te lucis ante terminum) and in the Omnibus Edition, as follows:
Part I, Nunc Dimittis: Amazon UK; Amazon US; B&N Nook
Part II: Te lucis ante terminum: Amazon UK; Amazon US; B&N Nook
Omnibus Edition: Amazon UK; Amazon US; B&N Nook;
through Smashwords, here, here, and here;
at all other Amazon sites;
and at iBooks, Scribd, and Oyster, amongst others.
The Village Tales are being made available for stocking by and at Gardners as well.
The Woolfonts are the most peaceful and placid – some say, the most chocolate-box – villages in the West Country, if not in the whole of the UK. Or … they’re meant to be. Of course, that doesn’t take account of the eccentricities of the villagers, from the humblest to the highest; or of all the ungentlemanly balls life can bowl.
The year began in flood and spate. Teddy Gates, the Celebrated Hipsta Chef and proprietor of The Woolford House Hotel, newly the local councillor, fell prey to a cross-party stitch-up at his colleagues’ hands, over social housing; now the duke, ably assisted by the indispensable Mr Viney, is cunningly working to get him out of his jam. By nobbling the MoD and the Defence Estates. There are plans to resurrect the old Cottage Hospital. Snook, the world’s most useless sexton, waxes odder by the day. The High Church Rector, Fr Paddick –, and Mr Mirza, the English master at the Free School – are becoming stressed by the well-meaning support of friends, family, and neighbours who don’t grasp the concepts of chastity, celibacy, and obedience. The Breener, now married to the Hon. Gwen, is in for a delightful shock. Edmond Huskisson is letting his activism get the better of him. The future prospects of Canon Judith Potecary, in Beechbourne, have the Dean, the Archdeacon, and the Bishop on wires. Sher Mirza’s uncle (and Charles duke of Taunton’s old right-hander and fellow OE), the Nawab, is facing a succession crisis.
Then tragedy strikes the duke’s family, with knock-on effects on the duke’s own health, even as Fr Noel Paddick’s constitution buckles under various strains. It shall indeed want a village – well: three of them, and the adjoining parishes, and the market towns, and the little hamlet of Woolfont Parva, and the whole of the Deanery – to Keep Buggering On and win through, and resolve every crisis at the last. Not least by putting some very special old soldiers in the new build of social housing: with a right Royal assist.
The old beloved characters and scenes return in this second instalment of GMW Wemyss’ Village Tales; a few old faces depart, and new, arrive; and at the end, the Woolfonts once more can say, This was their finest hour.
And don’t forget Mr Pyle, and his recent memoir of his heart attack:
Tonight at the Morpheum: a hospital farce in three acts:
“In autobiographical writing, it is not rare to find one or more of the following: humor, cold-steel candor, self-honesty, practical usefulness, defiance, guts, and/or high literacy. The hard part is finding the whole list in one book. In less than one hundred pages, if you take my word.
“Wish granted.”
From J. K. Kelley, in a five-star Amazon review.
New from George Knight:
Just in time for the spooky season ... The Wreck of the Lodewijk and Other Ghostly Stories
What lurks in the crypt of the church of St Oswald? What goes walking in the dark of night along a lonely Hebridean strand? What is the secret of the wreck of the Lodewijk? And what awaits the unwary traveller seeking to find his way home on a rainy London night?
In this collection of ghostly short stories, author George Knight tells the misadventures of four people who come closer than is comfortable to the supernatural.
George Knight lives and works in Gloucestershire. He has long been an enthusiast for the ghost stories of M. R. James and still remembers the effect of first reading the Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories and the work of Jorge Luis Borges. This is his first published work of fiction.
And, of course, the one which began it all:
Cross and Poppy
The first in the series: in which the duke proposes events, God disposes them, and the new Rector arrives.
The Woolfonts are the prettiest and most placid villages in England. There's the duke, who's more than the comedian he likes to play at being; retired celebrities; real ale; and an all-conquering local XI. All they want is a new Rector. And they get him. No one anticipates that crime, love, and sacrifice shall play out, between the sun of the Summer fete and the poppies of Remembrance Sunday.
***** 'A love story, a funny book, an intersting plot that's not really a plot, a book of faith, a Very British book'
***** 'Reading Cross and Poppy, I was reminded of books I read in childhood. This is not a childish book, but like the best of those, it gives the reader an entire world. I wanted to go there. I wanted to be friends with the kindly intelligent people there. They live in me now, and I want to see what will happen to them next.'
***** 'It is not often that a reader is treated to a story so utterly well-conceived or so perfectly set down. ... inimitable voice. A real treasure ... wonderful and wondrous tales.'
