Morecambe author to launch two new books at Lancaster library

The Wakefield-born author, now living in Morecambe has written 19 fantasy adventure stories for children in the last 12 years, 10 of them with children.

He has written also eight books for adults.

Frank, who was a teacher for 40 years before retiring from the classroom in 2006, will be launching two books for adults that he has written within the last six months at Lancaster library on Saturday April 2 from 10.30am until 2.30pm.

One of the two books to be unveiled is volume 7 in Frank’s semi-autobiographical saga about Jack Ingles is called "Where to Now, Jack?" and Frank will be doing a short talk as an introduction to the novel.

The first volume was published in 2016, and begins to trace the fortunes of the Ingles family from the mid-1940s in Yorkshire's West Riding coal fields around Wakefield. Theirs is a saga that could be replicated time after time in an area where scratching a living wasn't easy, and where coal, drink, and the occasional infidelity played integral parts in the life of the community.

The second book to be launched day is the first volume of a historical saga set in the North Riding in late Victorian times. It is called "Hidden Secrets" and it has a sequel already written, to be launched before the end of the summer.

Joss McIntyre is master of the Boulders Wood estate that his family has farmed for more than six generations. He is a hard man, his temper shaped by Victorian values and the harsh landscape in which he and his family live. Despite his attempts to control all those around him, Joss's young daughter, Annie, falls pregnant. As her child, Poppy, grows up, Joss's true nature emerges - with tragic consequences for the family.

Will Poppy survive the sometimes brutal events that beset Boulders Wood? Will the McIntyre sons, Joseph and Ross, manage to save the farm in the face of the rapid economic and social changes of the late nineteenth century and their father's intransigence? Or will the hidden family secrets ruin everything?