True Humor

Attention all potty-mouthed, cheap-wine-drinking mothers: Prepare to meet your match. Any bad thought you’ve had about your kids, Nicole Knepper has had worse. Much worse. It’s not that she doesn’t love her kids. It’s that she understands what a mind-f*?% it can be to try to civilize those wild little beasts.

Part thriller, part self-help manual, and part drinking companion, Corkscrew is a coruscating critique of neoliberal capitalism, religious intolerance, and the perils of blind tasting.

This is the seventh book in the series that started with: Going Round The Bend On The QE2 and concerns the time when the never totally sane Nick is confronted by his own mortality and reacts in his typical fashion of running away. This time he takes his daughter and granddaughter with him to Mallorca where he takes a job in a posh school and reopens his dance and karate clubs. On this peaceful, holiday island, there are a number of spectres: conman Headteachers, hostile local teachers, racist locals and a gentleman who is sick over your car and offers to clean it up for cash! Covid is ...

When Adrian and Celia Chisholm learn that their Marbella home is to be seized by the authorities of the fledgling state of Nueva Andalucia, all thanks to Britain’s much delayed exit from the crumbling European Union, they visit their resourceful neighbour Eric to see what he plans to do. On learning that Britons are being imprisoned in droves, they recruit Eric’s young friend Hayley and the four of them head for the hills… THE BREXIT BRIGANDS, SPAIN 2022 is a story set, as the title suggests, in the near future. Please ‘look inside’ before purchasing.

In KENNETH’S QUEST – J.J. Birtwell relates the story of Mr Cooper’s search for his son. When Kenneth’s vulnerable son disappears from his home in Estepona, the Derbyshire builder flies to Spain to find him. Having little to go on, Kenneth and his ex-wife Maite do everything in their power to track the twenty-year-old down, and when young Adam is finally spotted in Alicante, Kenneth sets off to find him, beginning a quest that will take him as far as the northern coast. Following clues gathered through their detective work and chance encounters, Kenneth begins to learn a lot about ...

When a man called Bryan arrives in the Murcian village everyone is curious to know why he has come, not least Peter, the author of this account. Having arrived by taxi with one small bag, Bryan rents a house for cash, befriends both locals and expats, meets a dark mystery woman in Caravaca de la Cruz, and begins to behave very oddly indeed. Peter and his pals, eager to ascertain what this enigmatic chap is up to, begin by monitoring his every move, but Peter’s wife Carol, an initially reluctant sleuth, urges them to employ a more softly-softly approach in order to catch him out. When ...

SPIKE IN SPAIN is the light-hearted story of a peculiar Lancastrian’s relocation to a small town at the foot of the Alicante mountains. An obsessive cyclist and the bane of his long-suffering wife’s life, Spike finds himself booted out of the family home and consigned to a grotty terraced house in Colne. Believing, incorrectly, that an old clubmate has invited him to stay at his Spanish retreat, a spell of lateral thinking by the cycling club president, Pete, leads to Spike’s flight to his old pal Mike’s house instead. As the charitable Mike has already rescued three donkeys and a ...

When Janet and Colin Paddison move into their dream home in the countryside inland from Valencia they hope to enjoy a tranquil retirement, especially Colin, an ex-librarian whose desire for peace and quiet has been a lifelong obsession. A boarded-up bar in a nearby hamlet has been closed for years, but when Miguelito the builder sets about restoring the place Colin begins to fear the worst. SEEKING SERENITY IN SPAIN is Janet’s humorous and somewhat fanciful account of her husband’s tireless campaign to hinder the new owners’ efforts to shatter their rural idyll. Colin begins by ...

AN INNOCENT IN SPAIN is the light-hearted account of an unlikely expat’s first months in his new country. Ian Smith might not be the first tubby, middle-aged Englishman to arrive in a small Spanish town, but he’s certainly one of the poorest and most naive. Luckily for him, long-time resident Graham Baker is on hand to help him settle in and somehow survive on his meagre savings. After an initial, potentially calamitous blunder Ian appears to rally, but it’s only a matter of time before he finds himself in dire straits once again. Will he have to return to Lancashire, more penniless ...

Jacob Torney, uprooted from his Cumbrian home at the tender age of fifteen-and-a-half, had to get to grips with a new language and culture whether he liked it or not. Thrust into small-town Spanish life just when he should have been studying for his GCSEs, his candid account tells not only of his own ups and downs, but also those of his Guinness-guzzling, tax-evading father, his long-suffering mother, and his happy-go-lucky younger sister, Katie. After steering a shaky course between the pitfalls of adolescence and the huge demands of school life, Jacob holds nothing, or very little, back ...

‘Making Friends – A Spanish Memoir’ is a book of reminiscences based on real people and events, commencing in the late summer of the year 2000. A humorous, informative and sometimes poignant account of a young Englishman’s discovery of a whole new world beyond the boundaries of the expat teaching community, his friendships with Antonio, Dominic, Pedrín and others at first complicate then enrich his life in the Spanish city of Murcia. In an account that takes us from seedy bars, through rock group rehearsals, to valiant attempts to help the eccentric and rather unstable Antonio sell...

THE GUEST’s visit to the author’s Spanish home was meant to be a carefree fortnight of work and leisure, but it didn’t turn out that way. Mike Rippon’s account of John Smith’s eventful stay is both humorous and harrowing, as his guest’s behaviour becomes increasingly odd. Undisputedly an expert golfer, John’s veiled tales of his life as a secret serviceman begin to strike a less than harmonic chord and Mike is soon counting down the days until his departure. John, however, is in no hurry to leave, and despite enlisting the help of his friends, Mike’s undoubted patience and ...

When Mr Alec Quigley, superannuated insurance clerk, leaves the Bedfordshire bungalow of his indomitable niece Angela and makes his way to the Spanish village that he once read about in a history book, things are unlikely to go smoothly. A man with many foibles, not least his tendency to fantasise, his guardian Angela wants him home before he can get into any of the frequent scrapes that have dogged his – and, of late, her – existence. He is, however, intent on carving out a new life for himself in the Spanish interior and soon enlists the help of Fernando the fireman, Jorge the ...

From Benjamin Franklin's newspaper hoax that faked the death of his rival to Abbie Hoffman's attempt to levitate the Pentagon - pranksters, hoaxers, and con artists have caused confusion, disorder, and laughter in Western society for centuries. Profiling the most notorious mischief-makers from the 1600s to the present day, Pranksters explores how "pranks" are part of a long tradition of speaking truth to power and social critique.

From the very first steps of acknowledging adoption as a choice to the final document that seals the deal, Jody Cantrell Dyer paints a raw, warm, heartbreaking, and eventually triumphant portrayal that narrates the entire adoption process through compassionate and entertaining prose. Dyer's candor and soul color the narration of The Eye of Adoption.

An Italian memoir. Laine gave up her job as a nurse, sold her home and gave away most of her belongings. She has three desires bubbling at the heart of her choice: to write a book, paint a picture and climb a mountain before she died. A man with a van took most of her remaining belongings, along with her basset hound Basil, down to the heel of Italy over 1,500 miles away, where she would spend the next four years. If it all seemed like a folly, then she was willing to take the risk. She moved to a house that she had only spent a week in the year before. She knew no one and yet she had ...

“Do you accept this my child?” God said to me, while sitting on the edge of my bed and watching me intently with those heavenly blue eyes. I looked at my husband, Ian, hoping for some guidance. If I said yes, it would change Ian’s entire existence, just as it would mine. I did not know the "chatting with God while he sat on the edge of your bed" etiquette. We didn’t cover that in Sunday School, I’m sure of it. That would be beneficial knowledge to have today.

Head over Heels for the Prince… Schoolteacher Lauren Carlyle doesn’t lose her head over men. This was why being swept off her feet by a handsome stranger at a party didn’t make sense. Not expecting to see him again after that night, she was shocked to learn they’d be living under the same roof. What was even crazier, the man she thought didn’t have a dime to his name was none other than Alexander Gabrielle, Prince of Carpegnia. She’d fallen for Alex without knowing he had royal blood. He was what she wanted but could she convince him she loved him for the man he was and not ...

The first two books in THE PEDLEY CHRONICLES series: BERYL, FRED AND A DOG CALLED TED: When Beryl and Fred decide to sell up and take a camper van tour around Spain with their lovable Cocker Spaniel, Ted, little do they realise how eventful their poorly planned trip will turn out to be. Intending to tour the whole country thoroughly in an anti-clockwise direction, one unexpected incident after another throws them off track and sees their faithful VW Camper, Vernon, transporting them to the south coast well ahead of any real or imagined schedule. Parked up and ready to enjoy the delights of ...

When Carolina Cunningham’s perfect life in retirement at the Villas begins to feel less than perfect, she realizes something is missing in her life. Even though she finds enjoyment reading her Mrs. Craycraft Super Agent books, she wants something more. When she decides what is missing in her life is adventure, excitement, and romance, she convinces two bridge-playing friends to take a Caribbean cruise onboard The Emerald Dream. During the cruise, the women cross paths with a stowaway, a hunky spy, a smuggling ring, assassins, and kidnappers. As their fears are brushed aside by authorities...