Most Popular Books by Ian Thompson

Explore the Yorkshire town of Whitby in this fully illustrated A-Z guide to its history, people and places.

The fascinating history of Burnley, illustrated through old and modern pictures.

Explore the history of the beautiful river Calder. A must read not only for those who know the river but also for those who have yet to discover it.

An anthropologist''s view of the Choctaw people around the time of first contact with Europeans using food types, cooking vessels, cooking utensils and methods of finding, growing and harvesting food. The book also offers explanations of seasonal migration and social changes as related to food sources.

AN INCONVENIENT VOICE is the true story of Maggie Houlihan, who chose poverty over an abusive marriage and escaped to a small coastal town where she would ascend to become the most polarizing public figure in its history. It''s the story of a remarkable woman written by her husband after her death. It''s the tale of two strangers who married for the sake of a Green Card, then unexpectedly fell in love and stayed together another twenty-eight years. It''s the story of Maggie''s universal compassion, her inability to say no to anyone she found suffering, especially the dozens of animals she rescued and homed or adopted. It''s the tale of her election to city council in a seaside village and her unrelenting fight to preserve the town from the forces of greed and self-serving power, in spite of libel and death threats she received along the way. It''s a story that stands as a testimony to the triumph of good over evil. But most of all, it''s a love letter, a tribute to Maggie Houlihan''s amazing character by the man who knew her best. IAN THOMPSON was born and raised in England. A freelance journalist, he is also a retired manager and technology executive. He wrote this memoir to share with more people the light that Maggie Houlihan was and the inspiration she brought to the world.

Late at night, a man drives through a hellish storm on a dark, secluded forest road. When a creature lunges out in front of his car, he strikes it a glancing blow... Resulting in a nerve-shredding drama of pursuit, violence and suffering as his unintentional victim seeks revenge. Can he survive this grotesque beast? From 5-Star Reviews for Ian Thompson: ..".extremely well written and very dark... Highly recommended." "I was completely sucked in and captivated from the first page" "Wonderful characters and an even better story" "I was impressed by the quality of the storytelling... an enthralling mix... a solid read" ..".a thriller... you can''t stop reading" ..".characters were interesting and real... full of twists and turns" ..".an absolutely awesome, intense read." Glancing Blow is the first in a new series of Short Horror Tales - quick reads written to captivate the reader with thrills, chills and unexpected twists... So why not take a passenger seat in a car headed towards nightmarish horror?

Join Drainage the Dragon in his second adventure. It''s Christmas Eve and Drainage is looking forward to his first Christmas with Michael. However Santa has a big problem that only Drainage can solve to save Christmas!

Beauty can be only skin deep. Horror can go right through to the bone. Nigel Fawson is down on his luck - he''s lost both his job and his family - so he sets out to get drunk in a seedy bar. Soon Fawson is comforted by a beautiful girl named Valerie. When he discovers that his new friend is a prostitute, he decides to throw caution to the wind and return to her apartment with her... And that''s when his night turns from awful to utterly lethal. Hooker is the second in a new series of Short Horror Tales - quick reads written to captivate the reader with thrills, chills and unexpected twists. Here are some reviews from this author''s horror releases: ..".extremely well written and very dark. The author did a great job of creating a palpable sense of doom that surrounds the main character from the beginning, and then creating more tension and horror as the story went on..." (Into The Hole) ..".well-written, descriptive and enthralling page-turner, that''s not for the faint-hearted... The twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat..." (God Of War) ..".thoroughly spooky, enticing and well written from start to finish." ..".great... I could feel the fear..." (Glancing Blow - Short Horror Tales #1) "Great short story..." (Ignition Source - Short Horror Tales #4)

Sometimes the worst monsters are human. Luke remembers nothing from the first ten years of his life - but whatever happened causes him hideous nightmares. Was something done to him... or did he do something terrible? Dr Maybury can cure Luke, but at what cost? And what does Luke''s newest, most awful nightmare mean? House Of My Dreams is the fifth in the series of Short Horror Tales - quick reads written to captivate the reader with thrills, chills and unexpected twists. Here are some reviews from this author''s horror releases: ..".thoroughly spooky, enticing and well written from start to finish." ..".great... I could feel the fear..." (Glancing Blow - Short Horror Tales #1) ..".well-written, descriptive and enthralling page-turner, that''s not for the faint-hearted... The twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat..." (God Of War) ..".extremely well written and very dark. The author did a great job of creating a palpable sense of doom that surrounds the main character from the beginning, and then creating more tension and horror as the story went on..." (Into The Hole)

Something is terribly wrong at an underground bio-weapons facility. Have research teams gone insane? Has some awful virus escaped? Or is the cause even more disturbing..? A team of elite mercenaries descend to investigate. Their mission soon becomes a raging battle for survival against an outnumbering, nightmarish force... Things spawned by nature, then made even more lethal by science. Bug Hunt is the sixth in the series of Short Horror Tales - quick reads written to captivate the reader with thrills, chills and unexpected twists. Here are some reviews from this author''s horror releases: ..".thoroughly spooky, enticing and well written from start to finish." ..".great... I could feel the fear..." (Glancing Blow - Short Horror Tales #1) "Great short story..." (Ignition Source - Short Horror Tales #4) ..".well-written, descriptive and enthralling page-turner, that''s not for the faint-hearted... The twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat..." (God Of War) ..".extremely well written and very dark. The author did a great job of creating a palpable sense of doom that surrounds the main character from the beginning, and then creating more tension and horror as the story went on..." (Into The Hole)

Are you afraid of the dark..? Young advertising executive Gemma is hard-working, clever and compassionate. She loves to go hiking in her free time. Fresh air, gorgeous locations and serene isolation offer her a perfect break... Until a brutal assault leaves her dumped, left for dead, deep underground... Badly injured, she''ll have to combine her problem-solving skills and her dwindling strength, if she''s to have any hope of escaping this grim prison. And without a light source, Gemma will have to navigate the terrifying labyrinth in pitch blackness. Every route taken threatens disaster - from pitfalls to the risk of becoming lost forever. Gemma has no idea if there really is a reachable exit. Crawling and searching saps her stamina. Pain, hunger and thirst weaken her further. Dead ends and despair erode her will to live and challenge her sanity... And what''s worse than being wounded, lost and all alone in the dark? Discovering she isn''t alone after all. Because somewhere in the dread darkness there is a shrieking, hunting abomination. Reviews from this author''s horror releases: "...thoroughly spooky, enticing and well written from start to finish." "...great... I could feel the fear..." "...shows true mastery of the short horror story... a wildly imaginative antagonist unlike anything I''ve read before... a quick, captivating read full of horror and thrills. The tense action and suspense of Glancing Blow make it incredibly hard to put down..." (Glancing Blow - Short Horror Tales #1) "...When the blood starts to splatter, Nigel''s day gets really rough. Thompson has devised a brilliantly brutal creature to sic on his leading man. Creative and twisted, the monster is a total terror... Hooker is an absolutely insane, blood-pumping ride... With a wicked cool monster and a page-turning climax, this is one Creature Feature you won''t want to miss out on..." (Hooker - Short Horror Tales #2) "Great short story..." (Ignition Source - Short Horror Tales #4) "Three Amazing Short Stories... I enjoyed each story and every twist and turn. Every story was my favorite, until I read the next one;-)..." "...crowded with so much action, I couldn''t put it down." (Short Horror Tales Omnibus #6) "...well-written, descriptive and enthralling page-turner, that''s not for the faint-hearted... The twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat..." (God Of War) "...extremely well written and very dark. The author did a great job of creating a palpable sense of doom that surrounds the main character from the beginning, and then creating more tension and horror as the story went on..." (Into The Hole)

Slaughter At Ghastar is the first in an all-new spin-off series of novellas set in the apocalyptic Era Of Darkness. Hordes of demonic warriors swarm from beyond the great Wall of Light. They crush opposing armies. They eradicate towns and villages. They have already slaughtered the Unseen Gods... This is an invasion like no other. Their purpose is not to expand their territory, to instil their doctrines on other people or to plunder the riches of their prey, but simply to destroy every living thing. At dawn, the demon forces reach the peaceful Human village of Ghastar - and an atrocious massacre ensues... Amid the fleeing villagers are four friends. Nidel is a strong but fearful nineteen-year-old man, who is desperate to protect his younger sister Dansel. Tanner and Lul are brothers and traders; Tanner is fifty and a stout boastful liar; Lul is half his age, very intelligent but quiet-natured. A fourteen-year-old girl named Vina joins the group and they reach the outskirts of Ghastar... Here the refugees meet Tygis, an old hermit believed to be an addled fool. They retreat into his small cabin - and discover there is more to the hermit that anyone could have ever believed. Yet soon the cabin is surrounded and under siege by demons. Makeshift barricades won''t last long under the mammoth onslaught. The six villagers will have to fight for their lives against the overwhelming invaders... Can anyone survive? Whereas Era Of Darkness tells the story of the demonic invasion on a huge scale, Survival depicts it from the perspective of a small group of refugees - not great warriors or leaders of nations, but ordinary people caught up in a catastrophe. Homeless and terrified, they are already victims of war. To make it through to the end of one terrible day, each character will need to summon up more courage than they ever knew they possessed.

A friend in need... A bizarre house... A terrible secret... Who will survive the Troll? An urgent message sends Steve rushing to the home of his old friend Tom Howard. He expects to find Tom relapsed into drug addiction, but instead finds something even more sinister. The condition of the house is grotesquely, unnaturally strange. And Tom is living in the basement, almost starved to death and totally fixated upon the internet. Tom tells a story so incredible that Steve doubts his sanity

When Police Lieutenant Dan Conway arrives at Crawford Mansion, he finds a gruesome massacre. Someone has taken control of a robot created for sick, wheelchair-bound Leon Crawford - and has turned it into a war machine. The scene is almost too grotesque, even for a veteran officer such as Conway. There are over a hundred people dead - many torn to pieces - and just a handful of traumatized survivors. Alongside cops like the volatile Sergeant Belasco, old-timer Gausman and the ever-reliable Becka Holson, Conway maintains a cordon around the building. Their orders are to wait for a team of heavily-armed soldiers to arrive and destroy the robot... However, when Leon Crawford makes a frantic call by cell phone from inside the mansion, the police have no choice - they must attempt a rescue immediately... The robot''s return to action results in another eruption of death and devastation. This killer machine is lightning-fast and possesses unbelievable strength. Bullets only seem to enrage its controller and to result in worse atrocities. Conway and the survivors of his team become trapped in the mansion, still searching for Leon, whilst being hunted by the near-indestructible robot. Any sounds they make will bring the steel monster''s wrath down upon them. No hiding place is safe. No barrier will hold back the machine for long... Away from the Crawford Mansion, rookie officer Anne DeLacy has been sent to collect Leon''s mother. What should be a routine assignment turns into a nightmare. She finds herself severely wounded, struggling to remain conscious and fighting desperately for her life. Who is controlling the robot? Why is he killing? And can the machine ever be stopped? ''Mechincarnation'' features of return of Dan Conway, who first appeared in the third Short Horror Tale ''Chained''. It is a dark, violent horror thriller and the longest in the Short Horror Tales series so far... A story crafted to grip the reader with rich characters and snappy dialogue; rising tension and a twisted narrative; and vivid, visceral action scenes.

Super-saving Short Horror Bundle... IGNITION SOURCE: Late at night, at a huge warehouse, a disabled security guard expects another boring, routine shift of work. He is utterly unprepared for the horror and terror he will have to endure. First there are intruders, then a raging fire, horrific murders... and a monstrous secret that is both alive and utterly lethal. In the face of a challenge which makes him doubt his sanity, can he survive..? HOUSE OF MY DREAMS: Sometimes the worst monsters are human. Luke remembers nothing from the first ten years of his life - but whatever happened causes him hideous nightmares. Was something done to him... or did he do something terrible? Dr Maybury can cure Luke, but at what cost? And what does Luke''s newest, most awful nightmare mean? BUG HUNT: Something is terribly wrong at an underground bio-weapons facility. Have research teams gone insane? Has some awful virus escaped? Or is the cause even more disturbing..? A team of elite mercenaries descend to investigate. Their mission soon becomes a raging battle for survival against an outnumbering, nightmarish force... Things spawned by nature, then made even more lethal by science. Short Horror Tales are quick reads written to captivate the reader with thrills, chills and unexpected twists. Here are some reviews from this author''s horror releases: ..".thoroughly spooky, enticing and well written from start to finish." ..".great... I could feel the fear..." (Glancing Blow - Short Horror Tales #1) "Great short story..." (Ignition Source - Short Horror Tales #4) ..".well-written, descriptive and enthralling page-turner, that''s not for the faint-hearted... The twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat..." (God Of War) "Gory, scary and totally unpredictable." (God Of War)

This text chronicles all the surviving milestones and guidestones in Cornwall and places them within the context of the development of the road system.

The second part of Ian Thompson''s interview was conducted in 2009. It covers the remainder of his political career, including the decision to resign from the Liberal party in 1989 and become an independent member of Parliament until the 1993 election which he did not contest. It covers the various Shadow Ministries held before his resignation from the Party, the Parliamentary Select Committees on which he served and his comments on the role of Independent members. Ian''s activities since leaving Parliament are briefly discussed. He died in 2009, aged 74.

Helps readers to see the archaeological sites of Hovenweep National Monument not simply as awe-inspiring ruins, but as the vibrant communities they once were.