Debrah Martin Catalog
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Are You the One?
‘Are You The One’ anecdotally recounts why online dating is not the way to meeting Mr or Ms Right (available via Amazon http://goo.gl/HQXLd )
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The Strategy’
‘The Strategy’ is a piece by piece plan to meeting and matching - or at
least making more friends (Amazon Kindle http://goo.gl/nNQet ).
least making more friends (Amazon Kindle http://goo.gl/nNQet ).
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Chained Melody
'"Chaos is rejecting all you have learned, chaos is being yourself." – Emile M. Cioran
Can the fluttering of a butterfly’s wing cause such a ripple in the world, it can change lives?
Chaos theory says it can.
Even with the sexual revolution of the permissive seventies and eighties, men remained men. But as childhood friends Tom and Will enter adulthood, for one of them maturity isn’t just growing from boy to man. He develops into someone completely new as surely as the butterfly emerges transformed from its chrysalis, irrevocably and chaotically also transforming both their worlds in the process.
Through battle ground bravado in Northern Ireland, drugs, sexual betrayal, IVF, transsexualism, and ‘forbidden’ love, they each search for courage to live life their way. Can love be strong enough to fly in the face of the chains of convention? The answer only becomes clear after events transpire to ultimately create a simple choice for them both; life or death, and they have to face the consequence of their choices.'
Full Synopsis
When a man walks out of HM prison, it is with a decision to be made; a decision that requires him to review almost a lifetime of memories to be able to make it. Tom and Will are best friends from childhood and share vulnerabilities and self-discoveries the way only best friends can, but in their teens, their lives take two very different routes. Tom joins the army and Will goes to university at a time when the aftermath of the psychedelic sixties has openly embraced more exotic behaviour. Tom discovers the reality of life and death in Northern Ireland and that showing courage is nothing to do with display. Will learns that what he thought he was, he isn’t.
Since childhood, Tom has always been the alpha male and Will the enigma. Childhood experiences have influenced Wills view of the male-female relationship, but the bizarre and flamboyant he experiences in the Kings Road shop he works in, and his own confusing sexual experiences bring him to a cross-roads in his life when he realises that he feels the same as the pre-op trans-sexual he accidentally sees undressed whilst at the shop. He decides he is a woman in a man’s body and he must make the transition to find true contentment. As he starts the journey towards his dream, he experiences the prejudice, violence and abuse which regularly dog those treading a different path, but also friends and allies in the most unusual places. In the meantime Tom returns home from the army, psychologically and physically damaged, and finds solace in a childhood sweetheart, whom he marries too quickly. Her desire for children leads to the discovery that he is infertile - another failing. He
accedes to her demands for infertility treatment, but the stress of it eventually leads to their marriage breakdown. Homeless and jobless, the only person he can think of to go to is Will.
After an explosive start, an act of courage by Will, now Billie, leads them to mutual accommodation of Will/Billie’s transformation, but also Tom’s continuing confusion with it and his feelings about Billie. Their relationship is gradually re-built, but the format changes as much as Billie does. For the first time Tom is able to examine his own vulnerabilities without being judged against the harsh criteria of the male world he is used to. Will/Billie’s experiences of ostracism, self-doubt, taunts and prejudice mirror Tom’s growth in self-respect, acceptance and finding an assured place in society. Their
growing closeness and the disturbing emotions it awakens in Tom are brought to a summary conclusion when his wife reappears, threatening blackmail and public humiliation for both of them, as well as putting Billie’s hard-won imminent surgical treatment at risk. The accident that follows forces the relationship into sharp focus as Tom has to decide if he has the strength of character to face potential prejudice and social alienation in order to support Billie. He doesn’t believe he has so instead he sacrifices his freedom to ensure hers, unwittingly blighting both of their lives instead.
The letter that has arrived just before Tom leaves prison tells him that Billie survived despite his belief she’d died after an accident as he started his sentence, and encloses her diary. As Tom reads the diary, he slowly comes to understand Billie’s form of courage and the part he has played in it. It gives
him hope he can at last find the same for himself. The story is told partly through the diary and partly through Tom’s own memories. Unexpectedly he potentially has a second chance at happiness. Is he brave enough to take it this time? The story ends with Tom finding the spark of hope that he actually created himself when he thought Billie was dying, and the melody between them becomes
unchained at last. The plot explores what love is, and is it the gender of a person we fall in love with – or the psyche? Perhaps the psyche is neither male nor female, and true love has no real boundaries at all?
Can the fluttering of a butterfly’s wing cause such a ripple in the world, it can change lives?
Chaos theory says it can.
Even with the sexual revolution of the permissive seventies and eighties, men remained men. But as childhood friends Tom and Will enter adulthood, for one of them maturity isn’t just growing from boy to man. He develops into someone completely new as surely as the butterfly emerges transformed from its chrysalis, irrevocably and chaotically also transforming both their worlds in the process.
Through battle ground bravado in Northern Ireland, drugs, sexual betrayal, IVF, transsexualism, and ‘forbidden’ love, they each search for courage to live life their way. Can love be strong enough to fly in the face of the chains of convention? The answer only becomes clear after events transpire to ultimately create a simple choice for them both; life or death, and they have to face the consequence of their choices.'
Full Synopsis
When a man walks out of HM prison, it is with a decision to be made; a decision that requires him to review almost a lifetime of memories to be able to make it. Tom and Will are best friends from childhood and share vulnerabilities and self-discoveries the way only best friends can, but in their teens, their lives take two very different routes. Tom joins the army and Will goes to university at a time when the aftermath of the psychedelic sixties has openly embraced more exotic behaviour. Tom discovers the reality of life and death in Northern Ireland and that showing courage is nothing to do with display. Will learns that what he thought he was, he isn’t.
Since childhood, Tom has always been the alpha male and Will the enigma. Childhood experiences have influenced Wills view of the male-female relationship, but the bizarre and flamboyant he experiences in the Kings Road shop he works in, and his own confusing sexual experiences bring him to a cross-roads in his life when he realises that he feels the same as the pre-op trans-sexual he accidentally sees undressed whilst at the shop. He decides he is a woman in a man’s body and he must make the transition to find true contentment. As he starts the journey towards his dream, he experiences the prejudice, violence and abuse which regularly dog those treading a different path, but also friends and allies in the most unusual places. In the meantime Tom returns home from the army, psychologically and physically damaged, and finds solace in a childhood sweetheart, whom he marries too quickly. Her desire for children leads to the discovery that he is infertile - another failing. He
accedes to her demands for infertility treatment, but the stress of it eventually leads to their marriage breakdown. Homeless and jobless, the only person he can think of to go to is Will.
After an explosive start, an act of courage by Will, now Billie, leads them to mutual accommodation of Will/Billie’s transformation, but also Tom’s continuing confusion with it and his feelings about Billie. Their relationship is gradually re-built, but the format changes as much as Billie does. For the first time Tom is able to examine his own vulnerabilities without being judged against the harsh criteria of the male world he is used to. Will/Billie’s experiences of ostracism, self-doubt, taunts and prejudice mirror Tom’s growth in self-respect, acceptance and finding an assured place in society. Their
growing closeness and the disturbing emotions it awakens in Tom are brought to a summary conclusion when his wife reappears, threatening blackmail and public humiliation for both of them, as well as putting Billie’s hard-won imminent surgical treatment at risk. The accident that follows forces the relationship into sharp focus as Tom has to decide if he has the strength of character to face potential prejudice and social alienation in order to support Billie. He doesn’t believe he has so instead he sacrifices his freedom to ensure hers, unwittingly blighting both of their lives instead.
The letter that has arrived just before Tom leaves prison tells him that Billie survived despite his belief she’d died after an accident as he started his sentence, and encloses her diary. As Tom reads the diary, he slowly comes to understand Billie’s form of courage and the part he has played in it. It gives
him hope he can at last find the same for himself. The story is told partly through the diary and partly through Tom’s own memories. Unexpectedly he potentially has a second chance at happiness. Is he brave enough to take it this time? The story ends with Tom finding the spark of hope that he actually created himself when he thought Billie was dying, and the melody between them becomes
unchained at last. The plot explores what love is, and is it the gender of a person we fall in love with – or the psyche? Perhaps the psyche is neither male nor female, and true love has no real boundaries at all?
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Webs
Everyone has hidden agendas, and there is nothing wrong with a bit of plotting - until deception takes over. Then both innocent and guilty can get trapped in the web of deceit, like the spider traps the unsuspecting fly.
When her mother meets two men via the internet, precocious teenager Lily’s plotting starts in earnest; the romantic demise of the suitors and the re-installation of her errant father. By contrast Lily’s mother plans on trapping all three! Whilst Lily and her mother merrily weave their innocent plans for domestic bliss and her father’s investigation into a local murder rumbles on, what they don’t know is that one of the men in the confusing romantic merry-go-round isn’t at all what he seems…
When her mother meets two men via the internet, precocious teenager Lily’s plotting starts in earnest; the romantic demise of the suitors and the re-installation of her errant father. By contrast Lily’s mother plans on trapping all three! Whilst Lily and her mother merrily weave their innocent plans for domestic bliss and her father’s investigation into a local murder rumbles on, what they don’t know is that one of the men in the confusing romantic merry-go-round isn’t at all what he seems…