Turned down for the male lead in a new musical, Allan is returning home bemoaning his misfortune until he stumbles…

Footprints in the Sea Volume 5
Continues where Volume 4 ended and there are more adventures for Charlotte, Will and their friends in the struggle to build an island community in a deserted and lonely part of the South Pacific where transgendered and intersexed people work together. Despite Mother Nature and the criminal activities of others, new discoveries are made and the mysteries surrounding the origins of the Charlotte Acrhipelago increase...

Frances becomes the go between and helps the two new lovers to arrange a meeting so they can get to know each other.
A meeting with Artemis is prepared for and she promises to reveal the nature of her discovery in the cave.

Another major discovery is made when Charlotte explores the tunnel but a discovery of what? Could it be one of the redundant satellites that are being dumped in the South Pacific by the various countries involved in telecommunications and space exploration?

Honeymoon over, Charlotte and Will return to island life.

Life continues at its romantic and often rollercoaster pace on her island and Charlotte makes another astonishing discovery and is introduced to new and very strange friends. There is passion and romance of course, some things never change particularly where, until recently, uninhabited tropical islands are concerned.
Charlotte takes her friends for a ride in the Islands latest acquisition, a Sunderland flying boat and follows this with an introduction to her most recent discovery. A discovery that will alter all their lives.
Whilst at sea on a scientific exploration trip, The girls with their menfolk are diverted to assist another vessel that broadcast a Mayday message. Whilst attempting a rescue in a force 8 gale their ship, Pacific Wanderer, is attacked by a third vessel that fires on them with heavy calibre weapons. The fire fight results in serious injuries to a number of Pacific Wanderers Crew including Charlotte’s closest friends. The timely arrival of HMZS Aurora and the Sunderland save the day until the flotilla returns to the island and has to negotiate the treacherous passage though the island’s reef with stormy seas and dangerous currents waiting for the tiniest mistake.
The question is, will Charlotte’s new friends keep their word and guarantee our heroine’s safety.
Volume 4 of this series is best read after volumes 1, 2 and 3.

Home safely at last and now a trip to the Butterfly Glade with Penny to meet a special friend...

Having completed her operation in England, Charlotte and Will return to their island in the South Pacific. There is a rush to familiarise themselves with the progress made in their absence, make new friends and renew old acquaintances.
Whilst Charlotte is doing this, she makes her first of a chain of discoveries, a hoard of laundered currency and packages of uncut heroin!
Then a trip to the scientific laboratories on the south side of Charlotte Island leads to the second discovery; over twelve thousand miles away from where they should be, evidence of an early settlement is discovered with Anglo Celtic Iron Age roundhouses, altar stones and jewellery dating back to a time before the first Roman invasion of Britain!
Shortly after this and whilst on her honeymoon with Will, Charlotte finds a letter written by the settlers who built their original house and two or three days later a hidden casket with more connections to the past!
But there are other discoveries to come. Is there a touch of magic involved? Charlotte becomes suspicious that this might be connected to her meeting in Berkshire with Penelopeia, ancient wife of Odysseus, the Greek hero of Troy and are the water sprite Undine and Goddess Artemis figments of her imagination, the early signs of a mental breakdown or visitors from another dimension?
Perhaps it is a reaction to the events of the past eight months, shipwrecked, marooned, her sexuality confused? Then a battle for her life on the high seas and the biggest shock of all; discovering that all her life she had been intersexed, a male and female sharing the same brain and body and all of this followed by the recent string of astonishing discoveries. Is that too much to ask of a person with XXY chromosomes?

After an evening of dancing, Emma and John go home and Scarlet, Emma’s Muse, dictates the action.

A trip on the river and a time for confessions.

The second date begins and Emma has a difficult time with her muse, aka Miss Subconscious or Miss SC who isn’t bound by behaviour protocols.

Murmuring with Starlings 3

First Dates are Kissing Dates
By Frances Penwiddy

Copyright © Frances Penwiddy 2016
Photo collage: European Starling by simonglinn via birdshare

Murmuring with Starlings contains material of an adult nature and is not suitable as reading material for minors.

Vesta’s Hearth Chapter 21
By
Frances Penwiddy

Copyright© Frances Penwiddy 2012

Vesta’s Hearth is a work of fiction, the characters and the Café are fictitious and any resemblance to places or persons living or dead is coincidental.

Vesta’s Hearth is not considered suitable reading matter for minors

In the final chapter of Volume 1, Helen goes home to the Café, buys a case of champagne, dances with Adam and buys a nest.

21

Vesta’s Hearth Chapters 17 and 18

By

Frances Penwiddy

Copyright© Frances Penwiddy 2012

This is a work of fiction, the characters and the Café are fictitious and any resemblance to places or persons living or dead is coincidental.

Helen learns to hate telephones, yearns for a kiss and takes her brand new 50 year vintage Ford Zephyr Zodiac for a spin.

17