MelCroucher.net
Mel Croucher | Latest Non-Fiction
"Compared with writing fiction, being a fact-monger is dead easy. Knocking out a text book, or a computer manual, or anything that doesn't involve making stuff up is nothing more than hack work. And that's the reason I try and include as much fun and stimulation as I can. I like to keep the reader involved with humour, and I like to surprise them and involve them to drag them through the pages with the least possible resistance. That's an enjoyable challenge. The fact they are reading my non-fiction in the first place means I have to keep it clear, keep it free from jargon, cut out all the fat, and not be a smartarse."
Last Orders (AG Books, 2017)
This is a hands-on guide to find out how long you're likely to live, to reckon what you're worth, to decide who gets what when you die, and to deal with your digital legacy. It takes you step by step through all the answers you need for a personal action plan, including your Will, your final years, your death, funeral, and all your last orders for after you're gone.
Everything is presented as simple questions and answers, along with options and examples. There's no confusing jargon, and there's instant online back-up for everything you need.
Relax. Stop worrying. Here are the answers to sort out your online and real world affairs and solve all those life and death problems:
"LAST ORDERS covers everything clearly, simply and honestly. An essential read for everyone who is not immortal."
Paperback, eBook and Audiobook available HERE
Mel Croucher | Latest Fiction
Writing fiction is a deluded labour of love. The hours are long and the pay is lousy. Especially when Mel insists on giving away great chunks for free in the hope that enough people will buy a paperback or ebook version of the real thing. Here's the latest news on what has just been published, and what's in the pipeline.
Devil's Acre (Acorn Books, 2016)
The world's largest building collapses in flames as terrorists launch weapons of mass destruction against the civilian population. Except this time the target is His Majesty's Royal Dockyard. The superpower is England. The terrorists are American. And it's 1776. Shock and awe, as a media war sows the seeds of fear, and panic sweeps the nation. The conspirators behind the atrocities are revealed to include a transvestite aristocrat, a crippled media baron and an alcoholic child, all holed up in the navy's favourite brothel. Welcome to Devil's Acre.
Mel Croucher is a native son of the streets and alleys known as Devil's Acre, Portsmouth, home of the Royal Navy. A third-generation 'dockyard matey', he was a surveyor of the Royal Dockyard by his early twenties, then an architect specialising in ancient buildings and historic bawdy houses. In 1972 he proposed to raise Henry VIII's sunken flagship Mary Rose and designed a museum structure for her, next to Nelson's HMS Victory in Portsmouth Dockyard. The unique vessel was eventually raised in 1982, and the world-class Mary Rose Museum opened on Mel's proposed site in 2013.
What the critics say about his work:
"Staggeringly original, unique and impressive."
The Sunday Times
"High concept, demanding, and not a little repulsive. A masterpiece."
Edge
"Mature, well-written and nicely comic."
Ken Follett
Mel Croucher now turns his imagination and storytelling skills to the characters and locations he loves best, with The Dockyard Quartet.
He has chosen to release Devil's Acre before the others in the series.
You are welcome to download a major extract from DEVIL'S ACRE for free by clicking HERE, and enjoy it so much that you want to devour it all from HERE.
THE DOCKYARD QUARTET
For four centuries, through one remarkable family, the power of the world's greatest Dockyard lies in the brothel below its walls.
BROADSIDE
July 1545. The French fleet is set to destroy Henry VIII's mighty dockyard, but the monks of Santiago have launched a punishment for the King's heresy far more lethal than an armada - bubonic plague. As Henry watches his revolutionary flagship Mary Rose sail toward the enemy, one desperate Englishman resolves to stop the plague-carriers from landing. And to do so he must destroy a sailors' brothel, sacrifice 600 blameless men, betray his only son and kill his dog.
DEVIL'S ACRE
The world's largest building collapses and terrorists launch weapons of mass destruction against the civilian population. Except this time the target is His Majesty's Royal Dockyard. The superpower is England. The terrorists are American. And it's 1776. Shock and awe, as a media war sows the seeds of fear, and panic sweeps the nation. The conspirators behind the atrocities are revealed to include a transvestite aristocrat, a crippled media baron and an alcoholic child, all holed up in the navy's favourite brothel. Welcome to Devil's Acre.
IRONCLAD
September 1859. Terrifying lights flash across the night sky as a magnetic storm destroys all telegraph communications. In Portsmouth Dockyard, a skivvy labours at Marc Brunel's relentless assembly-line, aware that even now Brunel's son is creating a new age where machines rule, and workers like her will be reduced to slavery. Across the narrow Channel, the French are about to launch a monstrous battleship, whose mechanical engines and armaments will render the entire British fleet obsolete and threaten the Empire. Ironclad is the story of a woman from the Devil's Acre brothels, struggling against the future and out for revenge.
FIRE-WATCHER
January 10, 1941. Hitler orders his Luftwaffe to destroy Portsmouth Dockyard before Germany invades England. Too old to fight for King and country, a vaudeville illusionist becomes Fire-Watcher over the Dockyard reliquary that bears his family name. As the incendiaries fall on the brothels of his beloved Devil's Acre, he discovers the means to pull off the greatest illusion in modern warfare. But first he must fight the Admiralty to save the home of the British navy from destruction.
The Dockyard Quartet, by Mel Croucher, Acorn Books