Annie & Cornelius

Annie Humble and the Bureau of Missing Souls

Psychopomps and their Spotters help reluctant earthbound spirits cross over. It’s a thrilling job for kids, especially an adventurous young ghost like Annie Humble, and her very-much-alive friend, Elliott. Emboldened by early successes, however, Annie underestimates the dangers ahead when Elliott spots a new case at a West End theater. Dashing back and forth between the Living Side and the Other Side, Annie must use her wits, street smarts, and newly acquired Psychopomp training to prevent a vengeful ghost from bringing down the house. But if you aren’t already dead, the job could well be the death of you – something Elliott may discover to his cost.

Interlacing humor with moments more profound, ANNIE HUMBLE AND THE BUREAU OF MISSING SOULS is a realm-crossing middle grade adventure about the importance of human connection. Loneliness and isolation can set the stage for anger and calamity when spirits become earthbound, but even the most obstinate and terrifying ghosts have a story to tell – and quite possibly a mystery to be solved – if only they could find folk able to see them, and willing to listen without fear.

Annie Humble’s character was inspired by the year I lived next to Brompton cemetery, a well-known Victorian cemetery and park in Chelsea, London. 

Corn Dog’s War

As Hitler’s bombs fall on a sleepy British village, can a 12-year-old evacuee from London fight his own battle against the Blackout Beast and save the local orphans from its clutches before it’s too late?

It’s June 1940, and Britain is bracing for attack and possible invasion from Hitler’s forces. Sent to stay with his godfather in the once-sleepy village of Upper Salviston, Wiltshire, twelve-year-old Cornelius Digby-Birtwistle is quickly immersed in the paranoia, diverse prejudices, and over-active imaginations of a community on edge. Could German spies be responsible for the curious and sometimes disturbing incidents happening around the county, or are they the work of the Woodwose (lately nicknamed the Blackout Beast) – a mythical, shape-shifting wild man of the night who supposedly preys on woodland animals?

Growing up in the shadow of his prominent parents, Cornelius seeks journalistic fame and adult approval by investigating the strange happenings – unwittingly putting himself and his trusty Dachshund, Spartacus, in the cross-hairs of a most cunning and dangerous foe. Too busy searching the skies and the faces of ‘outsiders’ for the dangers they dread, however, most of the villagers fail to see the evil that has been living amongst them all along, and it is left to Cornelius, Spartacus, and a misfit band of friends to confront the Blackout Beast in order to save a house full of orphans from a hideous fate.