"There is a dark secret haunting the Sharpe family. They are strange and remote, and when Stephanie Topham is told she must work with Nicola Sharpe in a science project at school, she is horrified. As part of their project, they have to make a pinhole camera. But when they take a photo with the camera, there is a ghost-like figure in their picture. This figure becomes a key to opening up Nicola Sharpe and revealing the secrets of her family. Through a series of appearances in various photos the ghost directs Nicola and Stephanie into a past that is full of revelations, twists and surprises. Some are painful, some tear at the fabric of the Sharpe family.
But the unraveling of Nicola's past is the saving of the Sharpes, and, in a final twist it gives Nicola something more amazing than anything she has ever dared contemplate, even in her deepest dreams.
'John Kitchen creates a great plotline with Nicola's Ghost, a story with a twist for pre-teens ... a good book. One I will be giving my daughter to read.' Reader's review - The Self Publishing Magazine."
"The last shot of world war two has been fired and a boy is born, destined for life in a beautiful fishing village in South West Cornwall. He is surrounded, there, by friends and a loving family and his is a childhood that dreams are made of. But in this village they chain up the swings on Sundays, and as he grows, he finds that puberty and its consequences are hushed up and must never be spoken of. This novel is an album of a boy's early years, a mosaic of stories, some funny, some harrowing, that trace his journey from birth to the brink of manhood.
John Kitchen was born and grew up in south Cornwall. His early life is the basis for this book.
Since retiring from teaching to write stories for children, John has published three major books. The first, Nicola's Ghost, won the Writer's Digest Prize for best young adults' novel in 2011, and the NGP Publishing Award in the same year. His second book, A Spectre in the Stones, was published in 2013, and the third, Jax' House, came out in 2016. Fragments of Springtime is his first novel for adults.John lives in a four-hundred-year-old cottage in Oxfordshire and writes his books in a bright yellow study at the back of the house. He is widowed, but has two wonderful children and four lovely grandchildren."
"Calm, rest, and peace come to us when Jesus becomes the great treasure of our lives. When Jesus is cherished as our inheritance and when we discover that he promises to give himself to us in deep personal relationship, this changes how we experience each day. Living in calm confidence is the result of prizing the Lord Jesus above all else.
About the Author
John Kitchen grew up on the plains of the Midwest in a good, but unbelieving family. After his father, sister, and he nearly died in an asphyxiation accident, his mother began seeking God. This led to John's surrender to Christ as a teen. God called him into ministry at the age of twenty, and he and his wife of over forty years have faithfully served together in full-time ministry since 1987. In 2020, God called the Kitchens to serve an international church in the Middle East."
"There is a dark secret haunting the Sharpe family. They are strange and remote, and when Stephanie Topham is told she must work with Nicola Sharpe in a science project at school, she is horrified. As part of their project, they have to make a pinhole camera. But when they take a photo with the camera, there is a ghost-like figure in their picture. This figure becomes a key to opening up Nicola Sharpe and revealing the secrets of her family.
Through a series of appearances in various photos, the ghost directs Nicola and Stephanie into a past that is full of revelations, twists and surprises. Some are painful, some tear at the fabric of the Sharpe family, and in pursuit of them Stephanie’s own family life is turned upside down. But the unravelling of Nicola’s past is the saving of the Sharpes, and in a final twist, it gives Nicola something so amazing that, even in her deepest dreams, she has never dared contemplate."
"The last shot of world war two has been fired and a boy is born, destined for life in a beautiful fishing village in South West Cornwall. He is surrounded, there, by friends and a loving family and his is a childhood that dreams are made of. But in this village they chain up the swings on Sundays, and as he grows, he finds that puberty and its consequences are hushed up and must never be spoken of.
This novel is an album of a boy's early years, a mosaic of stories, some funny, some harrowing, that trace his journey from birth to the brink of manhood."
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