As their wedding day approaches, young Catholics feel ready to join their future spouse in an exciting new partnership. They consider themselves to be mature individuals ready, willing and able to take on board all that their marriage can offer. However, after many years involved in parish-based marriage preparation I believe that some who are about to enter marriage have little idea of what might lie around the corner. They have a naïve appreciation of the difficulties, anxieties, shocks and upsets that will inevitably test their relationship as they face the challenges presented by today’s complicated world whilst striving to keep alive the love they share. Moreover, I have concluded that too many have confused and distorted ideas about what the Roman Catholic Church believes, teaches, requires and expects from them during this crucial stage in their lives. Perhaps this situation is predictable given the influence of powerful forces and ideologies which compete for their attention and the disharmony existing within the Church itself, where even the hierarchy hold divergent views and contradictory positions about its nature and purpose. This book considers the way in which ordinary Catholics, faced with so much pressure, ambiguity and conjecture, often struggle to navigate a course through the chaotic melting-pot which characterises modern life and might, on some occasions, question or even deny the Church’s determination to interfere in their personal and private lives.

In the early winter of 1983, a generous season for memories, Michael Tierney attended his first - and only - game with his father, John. For a self-employed electrician with nine children to support, this was the rarest of opportunities. Miraculously, Celtic overturned a first-leg deficit to thrash Sporting Lisbon, 5-0, with a team of home-grown talent, players that felt as one with the fans. As the years pass, that one magical evening fades in the bustle of family commitments and the constant spectre of unemployment. Then, in 2002, John Tierney has a severe stroke that renders him immobile and unable to talk. For his wife Catherine, for Michael and his five sisters and three brothers, the landscape of life would change irrevocably. But three decades later, Michael and his wheelchair-bound parent would make an emotional return to Celtic Park. The First Game with My Father is an evocative family memoir and a journey of discovery into lives that diverge, yet are knitted together by moments of sorrow and joy, and into the nature of identity, especially when tragedy renders a man voiceless. The most intimate portrait of a father and son and how a football team unites them in an unbreakable bond, it is also the story of a city, a community, and a treasured way of life.

Demons! Vampires! Time Travelers! A Giant Chicken? The creators of Twelve Hours Later and Thirty Days Later are back for another time-turning read with adventure in the offing, steam in the air, and tongue occasionally in cheek. Join us for fantastical stories from fifteen authors, including Harry Turtledove, Kirsten Weiss, Katherine Morse and David Drake, Anthony Francis, and Madeleine Holly-Rosing as we journey through time and genre. Take a tour of Jolly Olde London where madness may (or may not) prevail and things can get hairy after dark. Take an airship across the sea to the ancient city of Atlantis. Battle demons! Match wits with mystics! Try to resist the seductive power of chocolate or the magic of tiny mushrooms! Maybe even steal a treasure from a dragon. So put the kettle on, pour a strong cuppa, and curl up on the couch for a rollicking good read with Some Time Later. The clock is ticking …

Hang on to the edge of your seat with this exciting anthology of Steampunk flash fiction, featuring pairs of stories thirty days apart. Filled with rayguns and corsets, ghosts and gamblers, dragons and airships, Thirty Days Later features stories of intrigue and deceit, of comeuppance and conspiracy, of myths and monsters, of defectors and dilettantes, of time travel and time relentlessly passing. Join us in a nail-biting exploration of the churning worlds of gears, steam, action, and adventure! Join us for fantastical stories from authors including Harry Turtledove, Kirsten Weiss, Katherine Morse and David Drake, Anthony Francis, Lillian Csernica, Steve DeWinter, and Sharon E. Cathcart as we journey through time and genre.

Novelette The Elephant Idol, by Xavier Lastra Short Stories Young Tarzan and the Mysterious She, by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Michael Tierney Atop the Cliff of Ral-Gri, by Jeff Stone The Idol in the Sewers, by Kenneth R. Gower Born to Storm the Citadel of Mettathock, by D.M. Ritzlin The Book Hunter's Apprentice, by Barbara Doran How Thaddeus Quimby the Third and I Almost Took Over the World, by Gary K. Shepherd Deemed Unsuitable, by WL Emery Warrior Soul, by J. Manfred Weichsel Seeds of the Dreaming Tree, by Harold R. Thompson The Valley of Terzol, by Jim Breyfogle Moonshot, by Michael Wiesenberg

"Forget You Had a Daughter" is the extraordinary story of an ordinary British woman who made a mistake that changed the rest of her life. Sandra Gregory seemed to have the perfect life in Bangkok until illness, unemployment and political unrest turned it into a nightmare. Desperate to get home by any means possible, she agreed to smuggle an addict's personal supply of heroin. She didn't even make it onto the plane. In this remarkably candid memoir, Sandra Gregory tells the full story of the events leading up to her arrest, the horrific conditions in Lard Yao prison, her trial in a language she didn't understand and how it feels to be sentenced to death. Sandra finally resumed her journey home some four and a half years later, when she was transferred to the British prison system and had to adapt to a new, yet equally harsh, regime. Following relentless campaigning by her parents who refused to forget they had a daughter she was pardoned by the King of Thailand and released in 2000."

Sandra Gregory was caught smuggling heroin through Bangkok airport in 1993. Her punishment saw her suffer the horrors of the notorious 'Bangkok Hilton' prison, before being transferred to a British prison, then freed in 2000. This is her story.