I am an Indie Author who has published five novels and six collections of short fiction on Amazon Kindle. Most of my books are now available as paperbacks. I don’t conform to any genre, but enjoy writing about ordinary folk who find themselves having to cope with the extraordinary.
A NEW COLLETION FEATURING A NOVELLA AND NINE SHORT STORIES
A NEW FIVE STAR REVIEW FOR PANDEMONICA ON GOODREADS
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239183916-pandemonica
This interesting and very enjoyable little book is in two parts, and I read it in two sittings. Once I’d started it was difficult to put it down.
In the first part it takes the reader back to the days of Covid lockdown in a sympathetic and good-humoured way. (It all seems such a long time ago now, but only if the pandemic hasn’t left you with any permanent scars, of course.) The author shows us episodes in the lives of several interlinked characters as they cope with, and progress through, the unexpected twists and turns life and government pandemic safety regulations throw at them. Distancing, bubbles, clapping for the NHS, working from home whilst coping with offspring – it’s all there! The characters are well-drawn, believable and easy to relate to. It held my interest. I wanted to know what happens next to each of them. There is something there for everyone to recognise.
The second part is a collection of vignettes, musings and short stories. They are not related to each other except by the pandemic. The mood is darker with intriguing and unsettling turns, but still retains humour and a lightness of touch. I was particularly amused by the snapshots of Covid Community Characters, and Caring for Criminals. An unexpected take on these.
Well observed and well worth a read.
In 2020 life changed in ways that affected the whole world at the same time. Confined to our homes many of us were glad to have the internet; Facetiming family, working from home and for entertainment. Writers could still write and bloggers were glad to link up with each other and not feel isolated. I enjoyed writing blogs, especially short fiction about ordinary folk, inspired by what was going on around me or related to me by others. Most of my tiny tales featured the same few families and neighbours in an English town that perhaps you know. Looking back at these stories, all written in real time, I was amused at the strange regularly changing rules we had to adapt to. The stories naturally formed themselves into a novella. I have not altered them, but I could not resist finding out what has happened to the main characters since. Most of us could not have predicted the upheaval of this current decade, but some people have taken the opportunity of such disruption to change their lives.
The second half of the book is an eclectic collection of stand alone tales, also written in real time. We may have avoided the future portrayed in the final story, or have we?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pandemonica-Janet-Gogerty-ebook/dp/B0FJJBD5PK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pandemonica-Janet-Gogerty/dp/B0FNC149CV
Tales light and dark, bending reality, unexpected endings. In other words, just what you would expect in this fifth collection of my short fiction. Dip into an ABC of stories including four chapters of flash fiction.
NEW REVIEWS
A new five star review on Goodreads by Robbie Cheadle
A delightful and unusual collection of short stories. The stories are widely varied in their topics, but each has a common thread of the human experience that is nicely captured by the characters who are well developed, despite the length of the stories.
I enjoyed the Englishness of these stories which is reflected in the reactions and dialogue of the characters. The author has captured the essence of the English very well and it was entertaining and relatable for me.
My three favourite of the stories:
A New Family Member – this is the opening story in the collection and is about a man who wants to get a dog for himself and a family. He has specific requirements as to the size and look of the dog as it will be a bit of an ego extension for him. The moral is that you must be careful what you ask for as you just might get it.
Dream Machine – an intriguing tale about a unsatisfied school teacher who dreams of being a famous writer. He believes he has his best ideas while sleeping but can’t remember the details when he wakes up. If only he could write down his dreams as the sleeps. Nothing in life is ever as you expect it to be as is revealed by this fascinating short story.
Trinity Tree – a story about nature’s revenge on a spoiled and selfish man. I was delighted that nature, for once, got the upper hand in this intriguing short story.
A well writing and highly entertaining collection of short stories that will make you think.
Audrey Driscoll
4.0 out of 5 stars Ordinary People, Extraordinary Situations
Reviewed in Canada on 15 April 2025
This bouquet of short (some very short) stories presents ordinary people in the grip of the extraordinary. Technology, blogging, adventure, family members acting strangely, weird inventions, and happy and sad ironies are all packaged neatly for quick and entertaining reads. The author’s imagination has turned mundane experiences into amusing and thoughtful stories. In my opinion, “I Isabella” and “Thanephant” were the most memorable, but they are all worth reading.
Novels
Quarter Acre Block
Brief Encounters Trilogy : Brief Encounters of the Third Kind
Three Ages of Man
Lives of Anna Alsop
At The Seaside Nobody Hears you Scream
Collections
Dark and Milk
Hallows and Heretics
Times and Tides
Someone Somewhere
Tidalscribe Tales
NEW – PANDEMONICA
VISIT MY AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE
https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B00A8FWDMU
In the nineteen sixties many ‘ten pound pommies’ had never left England before and most expected never to return or see loved ones again. George Palmer saw Australia as a land of opportunities for his four children, his wife longed for warmth and space and their daughter’s ambition was to swim in the sea and own a dog. For migrant children it was a big adventure, for fathers the daunting challenge of finding work and providing for their family, but for the wives the loneliness of settling in a strange place.
NEW FIVE STAR REVIEW
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful story of a family seeking a better life in Australia
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 May 2025
This is a book which captures a unique time in British history when residents were invited to immigrate to Australia for the sum of £10 and welcomed with open arms. These days of closed borders and anti-immigration policies, it was certainly a different world.
Loosely based on the author’s own experiences this story is about a family who uproot their lives, leaving family and friends behind, to pursue a dream of increased opportunities to prosper and a better future for their children. There is no doubt the promise of a warmer climate played its part in the decision making.
We follow the family as they go through the decision making process and the necessary paperwork. With a house to sell they did at least have some money to transfer to Australia to give them a start on finding a home. Obviously saying goodbye to family was very difficult, especially with the prospect of never seeing older family members again. The children are torn too, as they leave their friends behind but they are also excited by the adventure, including their first plane journey.
The story is told from the perspective of the parents and their daughter Jennifer who shows a maturity beyond her years as she helps look after her younger twin siblings and help keep her older brother Simon’s ambitions to be a rock star in check.
I can only imagine how they all felt to be welcomed so warmly by an old army buddy of their father and his family, including an adorable dog called Drongo. Others who have taken up the same £10 offer also rally around and the search begins for a job, a house and schools for the children.
We join the family of their excursions to the surrounding countryside, into the major towns and cities and first experiences for them all such as swimming in the ocean and attending an authentic BBQ.
Not all is plain sailing as a getting used to a different culture, isolation particularly for the mothers, a new school environment, being more isolated from family and a constant need to be careful with money, results in some stressful times.
However, it is clear that this family is adaptable and I thoroughly enjoyed sharing this first year of their adventure. They are resilient and determined to make things work and are great examples of how immigration is beneficial, not only those taking the drastic steps to make the journey, but their new country which gains hard-working citizens and a younger generation to build a more prosperous future.
Very happy to recommend this book as an enjoyable read about an interesting time in British and Australian history.
In the early years of the Twenty First Century, widow Susan Dexter has more to worry about than the recession. For thirty years she has kept a secret; she is not sure if her daughter is human. New events lead her to other people who need to find the truth.
How do ordinary people cope with the extraordinary?
Mystery, music and medicine are at the heart of this family saga; sub plots are woven amongst several very different love stories, as the characters question what it is to be human and what is reality.
A man wakes up on a London park bench wearing another man’s clothes and another man’s watch. As he finds his bearings he realises the impossible has happened.
This is the preparallequel to ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ and second of the trilogy.
In the early years of the Twenty First Century a stranger arrives in Ashley. Only he knows the truth about what will happen to beautiful musician Emma Dexter in seven months time, but will he be able to save her and the others caught up in events that defy explanation?
Julie Welsh is a busy mother with plenty of problems and her life is about to get far more complicated when she stops to help a stranger.
The universe is unknowable, what happens in these two novels could happen to any of us!
Do you like a good family saga, do you enjoy fast moving thrillers, do you wonder at the meaning of life and the whole universe? If the answer is yes to any or all of those questions, you will enjoy this novel.
All Anna DaSilva ever wanted to be was a doctor, but newly qualified, she met a group of people who were to change her life.
As Anna Alsop emerges from the misery of morning sickness she looks back on the past year and tries to come to terms with the year ahead. Married swiftly to a man she hardly knew, step mother to a hyperactive toddler who must be protected from himself and the rest of the world, can love and sharing the impossible be enough to build a family and her career?
Anna and the other residents of Holly Tree Farm keep their inexplicable experiences secret from the rest of the world and try to create a normal life, but for how long?
‘Lives of Anna Alsop’ is the third and final novel in the ‘Brief Encounters Trilogy’.
In the summer of 2013 Annette Bethany Brown went missing without trace. Her boyfriend Toby Channing was the last person to see her, the only person who knew where she had spent the previous days.
In February 2014 Tobias Elliot Channing, private investigator, was still roaming the country, a camper van detective specialising in missing persons; hoping to discover why so many people go missing. He was visiting every place that had a connection with Anna, there were still no clues to her disappearance.
ALL MY COLLECTIONS ARE AVAILABLE AS PAPERBACKS
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tidalscribe-Tales-Janet-Gogerty/dp/B0DYJHNFQM
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 