Bøger af 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?

Scottie, a self-centered, dissolute university administrator with a weakness for cigarettes, drink and women, finds that he is unwelcome when he visits his university student daughter, Tina. His effort to drown his sorrows leads him into a world of terrorism and danger where he becomes a fugitive from the police and from the IRA. In desperation and with the help of some university students, he decides to break with his egocentric habits and do one decent thing. But he has made powerful enemies and will have to face retribution.

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.

After three years in the service of the emperor of the Greeks, Ahl and his Viking friends have become very rich. Now the crew longs to return home with their wealth, their problem is that the emperor will not permit them to leave. They make a daring plan to escape. The route home is perilous as they navigate uncharted seas. They must overcome robbers, storms and hostile strangers as they seek their way back to the Northlands with the riches which they have earned.

The young crew of the Viking ship Eagle set out on a new journey when they are given the task of delivering a message in the land of the Rus. But fate has a surprise in store for them when they are ordered to travel on the Viking trading route south to Constantinople, a route fraught with danger.They must face warring tribesmen, deadly rapids and a host of other dangers before they reach their destination. There the adventure continues when they find themselves in the service of the emperor of the Greeks.

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.

               In the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of children were evacuated from British cities and sent to areas of the country where it was regarded that they would be safer from bombing. This Government operation was named "Pied Piper". The first evacuations were in 1939 and the second wave in 1940, at the time of the Blitz.               Children went to stay with complete strangers, who had been deemed by the authorities to have spare space in their homes. The hosts were obliged to take the children. Many were unenthusiastic about having a young guest staying with them for an unspecified length              of time and there were incidences of unkindness and even cruelty.              "Treason" is a story about two such city children. Judith is a twelve year old girl from London, an only child from a very privileged background. She finds herself billeted in a farm on the Isle of Wight. The farm is run by Mrs Orton, a widow, who lives with her twelve year-old son, Jimmy, and her handicapped brother-in-law. They are joined by another evacuee guest, Alfie, an eleven year-old boy from a working class family in Portsmouth. The story tells how their lives change and how the guests adapt to a very different way of life. Like all children they enjoy adventure, but the one on which they embark gets them involved in a danger to their lives and leads them to TREASON! The book allows children to learn about this tragic time in history, without hearing about the horrors of war, but still what children of their own age had to endure during a time which changed every one''s lives.                      

This is the story of a man who lived 4,500 years ago. He was born in the region of the Swiss Alps and died nearly a thousand miles away in the south of England near to Stonehenge when it was being built. The mystery is how this could have happened, for the man''s skeleton shows that he was physically disabled. He lived at the end of an era, when human curiosity was pushing the boundaries into a new age. It was an exciting time when dependence on stone gave way to a new, more versatile material - metal.The numerous items buried with the man give tantalising clues regarding to his ability as an archer, but also to his role as a pioneer metal worker.How did this man come to be so far from his homeland, and who, or what, brought him into contact with his apparent trade? What secrets of metallurgy, locked into simple stone, did he learn and how did he use the power that these secrets bestowed upon him? Utilising real-life detail from his burial site and remains, Michael E Wills weaves a story that could represent what life was like for this individual, how he lived and how he died. It is an exploration of a time when technology took a great leap forward and helped us to get to where we are today. 

Maia is an Egyptian girl who lived at the time of the pharaohs. Her normal happy life is interrupted when she is kidnapped and made to work as an unpaid home help in a house very far from her own. Her only possessions are the clothes she wears and her very special red slippers. When one of these is stolen she is desperately sad. But help comes from an unexpected place and her plight comes to the attention of the pharaoh. The story is based on an Egyptian folk tale.