Books published by Matchstick Literary

Of Mists and Monsoons traces the varying fortunes of a young man caught up in the horror of the Irish Famine of the mid-19th Century. The story unfolds as he is rescued from certain death by starvation along with the rest of his family, and joins the British Army as a drummer boy, and travels to India. This remarkable character finds himself caught up in the Indian Mutiny 10 years later, but survives to found a family of his own. The leading character is loosely based on the author's own great-grandfather, who did leave Ireland in the mid 18th Century and travel to India with the British Army where he founded a family dynasty that endured until Partition in 1946. Anecdotes from the author's mother and extended family are used freely in the text.

This Erratic Planet is a book of vital importance to the future of our species. Drawing on a staggering range of references across disciplines including geology, astronomy, archaeology and palaeontology, Ian Rankin' outlines his radical ideas about the worlds past. Contrary to conventional scientific thinking, the evidence he has examined has convinced him that the history of our planet is not one of gradual change, as proposed by Darwin's theory of evolution, but a story of successive, yet systematic, global catastrophes. These have wiped almost all trace of previous civilisations from the face of the Earth. These catastrophes, known as pole shifts, derive from the unstable nature of the solar system, which is the subject of the book's second part.

Wanted: A Forever Home is a heart-warming tale where we share the thoughts, fears, loneliness, and joy of Senora, a toffee-nosed house cat, and ten very individual and determined street cats whose lives are all torn apart until they meet up with Gentleman George, a Portuguese mountain dog whose one mission in life has always been to obey the commands of his master. When George is commanded to find the scent of Bella, a street cat whom he has never seen, and return her to her forever home, his task proves far more complex than he could have ever imagined. But his troubles are only just beginning when he later finds himself shepherding a flock of cats across the Spanish countryside with all its unexpected twists and turns.

Riddle-me-ree! Just what is this book? Is it an adult book for children or a children's book for adults? It certainly must not be read by politicians, especially Prime Ministers. Small Paul's extraterrestrial antics have accidentally revealed shocking parliamentary misbehaviour above and beyond the call of duty. This is a must-read for any citizen concerned with the future of parliamentary democracy. And also for anyone owning a wardrobe or a homburg hat. Be warned. Be aware. Be a reader.

What your Mind Sees, the Body Feels, Creates and Attracts is an introduction of how our deeper, hidden thoughts create our life, often without us knowing.Life choices, habits, knee jerk reactions, diseases, relationships and life experience all come from a place hidden, deep in our sub-conscious mind - our beliefs. Our beliefs are created from the inherited DNA from our parents, what we have perceived and interpreted during our childhood; reinforced from our society culture, school, community and significant others along the way. Our self perceptions not only dictates our life style choices, but also changes our body chemistry, and often not in a healthy way.Our body and life are constantly giving us clues of when we are out of sync with our calling. It is called dis-ease. Our body and life mirror back to us what we believe, think and feel about ourselves, asking us to look at our stuff, and transform anything we don't like and that is keeping us small and feeling 'less than'. It is asking us to transform the limiting beliefs, past hurts and pains into love, so we can heal our selves and help heal our communities.What we need to do, now more than ever is learn the language our body is using to talk with us, transform our heavy, limiting beliefs and emotions into love and light. This is our life's duty, To know ourselves and come back to love.

Aaron Johnson, a Royal Air Force pilot was on a mission to Borneo during the Indonesian Confrontation in 1964. He never intended to stay long. However, after meeting a young Asian girl, he fell in love with her and decided to stay on permanently in this wilderness. Decades later, a lawyer turned lobbyist, William Stewart in turn fell in love with Aaron's daughter, Theresa. Both ended up having troubled relationships. Aaron also had to deal with his problematic sons. Both Aaron and William were also gripped by the island's cultural and environmental issues which locked together their love stories in this LAND BELOW THE WIND.

In 1997 my eldest son was diagnosed with bipolar and admitted to Ledger House for treatment. At the interview with the doctor I was asked if anyone in the family had bipolar. It was at this point that I realized that it was me. I was bipolar. The years slipped by and I remembered the agony of being in River view mental hospital. At the time we were more concerned for our son than for me. As we struggled with his illness it was all we could do to keep our family afloat. It was a long time before we had any semblance of normality crept back into our lives. Even after we got home he would go out at night, at the strangest hours, and seemed to need no rest. By the time the fall term had arrived he was back to normal and passed grade 12 without any problem. Now we could relax and off he went to university. Alas it was not to be! He went manic again either through not taking his medication or just because he liked the high. He lived in a halfway house and tried to make ends meet. By this time he was on permanent disability so we did not have to contribute to his upkeep. He struggled through university going one year then being manic and missing the next. Finally, after ten years, he graduated and his mother and I were so proud of him. They kept changing his medication and by trial and error they finally got it right. There was no thought of him using his university degree but rather he settled on being a bridge director. Now, by the grace of God, he has achieved a measure of stability.

In the Winter of 2007, my wife and I came upon the idea of taking an around the world cruise. Our reasoning: most importantly, we were both in good health and were not limited physically from enjoying all the experiences such a trip could provide; we were both retired and could reasonably afford such a trip if we were prudent in selecting among all of the add-on op-tions. We had taken multiple Caribbean cruises over the years and were "ship ready" and we had great curiosity about the numerous variances in world cultures as well as topographies.We decided upon a Holland America cruise upon the flag ship Amsterdam. The route was a sleep friendly west to east, leaving and arriving from Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Our cruise de-parted on January 4, 2008 and arrived back at Ft. Lauderdale on April 27, 2008 -- a total of 113 days, covering 35,936 nautical miles and stops at 41 ports. An itinerary of our cruise is included as an appendix.As we concluded the arrangements for our cruise, we promised our friends and relatives to send regular emails of our adventures. We gathered information from various sources to compose our emails as the cruise progressed. The normal course of accumulating historical facts and descriptions of current culture and local customs were gained in advance from highly educated speakers brought aboard ship prior to each disembarkment. Typically, these speakers were natives of the countries or environments they described. We closely followed and took copious notes of these presentations, delivered in the ship's auditorium.A second source of information along a broad spectrum of topics were the native guides assigned to our groups on shore excursions, be they by foot, bus or water craft. Without excep-tion, the local guides were invaluable in presenting the realities of their countries, environments and life styles.Lastly, each of our shore excursions produced vivid and unique impressions of our envi-ronments that would be in addition to, and sometimes counter, to our on board presenters and our shore guides. Little did we know that our collection of emails and photos would later become chapters in a book. Our advice to our readers -- it is better to experience it live than read about it. Should you decide to take such an around the world cruise we wish you Bon Voyage.Jim & Connie Cameron