Books published by Stairwell Books

Well known in his native Tyneside, Harry's best selling Northern Lights, the most borrowed book in Middlesborough Library, took aim at the appalling treatment of the North East.there is an england [note the lack of capitals] widens the scope of Harry's pen to the current state of the country. In his own words:"A country with a parliament dating back over 800 years: a country which boasts a long line of engineers, inventors and pioneers who between them nigh-on made the modern world as we know it. Yet it was also a country which - to the eyes of many outsiders - seemed hell-bent on a level of self-harm which would previously never have been believed possible.""...like a spark in a furnace" - Wendy Pratt,Northern Soul - about Northern Lights

Part memoir part biography of a beloved father York author Rita Jerrams final collection of poignan. In this final collection of stories by well-known York writer, Rita Jerram, Rita recalls her fathers eventful life and her own youth. This delightful memoir vividly records a vanished world.

Twins Katrina and Alex normally live on a houseboat in London, but are spending the summer in Scotland while their mum receives treatment. Aunt Clara is an artist, like Alex, and Uncle Archie is a forest ranger. Almost right away, the twins find themselves searching for what seems to be a big cat. Or, is something stalking them?

Set against the Russian Revolution of 1905, a prelude to that of 1917, this novel explores the complexity of relationships and motivations that lead to acts of rebellion.As Anna finds new purpose to her life and falls in love, the violent struggle against the Tsar escalates. On 9 January 1905, a workers' protest is massacred by Tsarist soldiers

A trilogy of poetic voices, encapsulating rage, angst, fearlessness and insistence on being heard. Each poet is poised on the edge of prominence, and brings her own vision of the world: how their elders have handed it on, and how they wish to see it remade. Becca shines light on the modern through a classical lens, focusing on 'dark goddesses' such as Inanna. She rages at senseless death-by-cop; but knows better than to "shout". Laura lobs sestinas at weapons of destruction: the silencing of women, reforming them into one's ideal, where controlling anything is better than controlling nothing. Izzy also writes about classical creatures: Anglo-Saxon monsters, Norse gods, or enraged statuary brought to life. She reminds us to be our true, unapologetic, murderous or sexy selves, in an earthy, steel-tipped set by a member of Generation "Snowflake".

This intriguing detective story introduces DI Ambrose in the first of a series of tales of murder most foul. Foul Play happens in a fog bound theatre with a cast of eccentric actors to keep the reader engaged until the very last page. We also meet popular team members DS Waters and WPC Meadows for the first time This novel is the first cooperation by mother daughter duo Pauline Kirk and Jo Summers writing as PJ Quinn.Set in a partially bombed out theatre in the sleepy town of Chalk Heath where the leading lady is attacked on stage during a rehearsal. This is postwar austerity Britain, James Dean, Danny Kaye and Brian Rix are all the rage, yet in Chalk Heath, culture is represented by the Players. Ambrose and his team set about finding the killer.This was a time when forensic science was in its infancy and crime scene processing was primarily good observation with a bit of fingerprint analysis and blood typing thrown in to taste. For the crime novelist this period allows for good character development and greater freedom to explore the relationships between all the principals. Foul Play is an exemplary tale of high drama in a dramatic setting while Ambrose, who remembers the theatre in is prewar glory, and coping with his own wayward son, attempts to reconcile his younger self, his son;  the damaged theatre and acting troupe with the essential business of solving the crime.

Most of the world's major cities are inundated; a tsunami has wiped out houses, shops and schools along the Hartlepool shoreline. And now the authorities are walling in the flood zone…Seventeen-year-old Zoe, knocked unconscious during the sudden flood, cannot recall her name and can only summon flashes of her immediate past. Zoe meets Alma, who has a mysterious link to global entrepreneur  & opportunist Volk Volkov, himself a refugee: of his own past, and of a Soviet prison camp. But will Alma and Volk's drama trap Zoe in The Zone?The ancient past and possible future collide with Creationists, environmentalists, former prisoners, flood tourists and feral castaways in Eliza Mood's rollicking survival story set in the near future. O Man of Clay is a finely imagined and complex dystopian novel about an England of the future overwhelmed by environmental catastrophe. Like the best novels set in the future, this one is really about our miserable, dismal, toxic present and its message is salutary, prescient and terrifying.  The writing is also very, very good.Carlo Gébler, novelist