FOR FREEDOM

"I have now completed my fifth historical novel, set during the Second World War in the Pacific. As always I combine real people with my fictitious characters, including General Douglas MacArthur, Major General Christopher Maltby, General Jonathan Wainwright and many others.

The story unfolds in the dark days when the whole of South East Asia appears to be capitulating before the rising sun and Australia is next in line. The lives of four people are counterpoint to the chaos of the war.

Lexine (Lexi) Whitby, an English doctor raised in Hong Kong who marries a good and honourable man knowing she carries another man’s child. She escapes from Hong Kong just hours before it falls to the enemy, only to be shipwecked and to find herself in the Philippines as the Japanese invade.

In Hong Kong in the early days of the war John Drayton Whitby, professional soldier marries Lexi, his long-time fiancee. When he is sent to fight with his Australian comrades in Java against the seemingly unstoppable Japanese, the island surrenders but he and a few of his loyal men make their daring break for freedom.

Hank ‘Trap’ Trapperton, the West Point trained American who can kill with his bare hands, the ‘spy’ who is John Drayton’s friend and whom fate throws in Lexi’s path. The man who hates himself for the way he feels about another man’s wife.

And Kathleen Leigh, the Eurasian nurse who has been Lexi’s friend since childhood and who has loved John Drayton secretly for years. Kathleen has been brought up to believe a lie and the day comes when she must confront the appalling truth.

Once more I have written a story of sacrifice, compassion and heroism and attempted to show the heights the human soul can attain as well as the depths to which it can sink. And to give an historical perspective inside what I anticipate to be ‘a good yarn’.

The paperback edition of FOR FREEDOM is on sale in bookstores now in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and can be purchased on line via Amazon in other countries. My wish will be to hear that it is a book you 'didn't want to put down'. "