Abbot Peter has recently swapped his failing leadership of a remote monastery in the Sinai desert for retirement in the bleak and stormy English seaside town of Stormhaven. When the charismatic local vicar is discovered dead – crucified, naked, to a cross on the vestry wall – Abbot Peter is invited to act as a Special Witness investigator.He is assigned to work alongside Detective Inspector Tamsin Shah – young, pretty, brash, unsentimental and, by a peculiar quirk of fate, a niece ...

‘Although seven clowns started the evening alive, only six still breathed by the evening’s end. And while everyone saw the murderer and knew the murderer, no one knew their name.’Henry House, an Elizabethan manor, is now occupied by Mind Gains, a new therapy centre in Stormhaven. But a Halloween party for staff and clients ends in gruesome and bloody murder. Once again, retired monk Abbot Peter and his niece Detective Inspector Tamsin Shah are called upon to solve the mystery....

When the curtains of the Bell Theatre open for the second half of Mother’s Day, a new play commissioned for the venue’s thirtieth anniversary, the lifeless body of theatre director Hermione Bysshe-Urquhart MBE is revealed. Within the startled audience sit retired monk Abbot Peter and his guest for the evening, Detective Inspector Tamsin Shah. Tamsin and Peter undertake a new murder investigation among the cast and crew of the theatre, a struggling pro-am business operating from a converted...

Times have changed since John Bunyan wrote his classic Pilgrim’s Progress, telling of Pilgrim’s journey up Hill Difficult and through the Slough of Despond to the Celestial City. Yet people in their millions still seek meaning in their lives and speak of journeying towards a goal. Everyone on earth seeks a heaven. This is the story of the journey of Pippa, a 21st-century Pilgrim. Simon Parke’s witty and insightful modern-day re-telling of Pilgrim’s Progress follows the original’s premise o...

A book of short meditations for use wherever you find yourself - on the bus, at the doctors, in your bedroom or by the pool. The third in Simon’s One Minute trilogy, it’s an invitation, in your busy life, to Pause. Read. Live. For truth-seekers who value awareness in their life… but don’t have all day.

The Enneagram is a time-honoured way of understanding personality types and human behavior. It is both ancient and modern. Developed over 1500 years by Sufi and Christian mystics, it was revised and extensively expanded in the 20th century by the disciplines and insights of Western psychology.It identifies nine types of personality, nine ways of being, describes how they interrelate and is widely used today as a perceptive guide to self-understanding. In this original and thought-provoking bo...

Wake up your mind and soul with a mini meditation!Need a break from the mayhem of the modern world? Sometimes all you need is to give yourself permission to pause. You're not looking for easy answers or quick fixes; but you haven't given up on truth - truth that is deep enough to hold and transform the realities you live with every day. So why not try these simple steps? Simon Parke draws on his popular column in the Daily Mail to open you to wide...

This book offers ten new commandments for coping with the stresses, strains and pressures of modern life. These ten new commandments are ten skilful attitudes for the attainment of your true self.Be presentObserve yourselfBe nothingFlee attachmentTranscend sufferingDrop your illusionsPrepare for truthCease separationKnow your soulFear nothingThis handbook will set you on t...

What does solitude mean to you? Albert Einstein once said: I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.In his latest book Simon Parke, author of The Beautiful Life and One-Minute Mindfulness describes solitude as the active path to inner silence and takes us on an enthralling journey there. In a world of haste and ...

In 1982, aged twenty-three, Simon Parkes paid £1 for a virtually derelict building in Brixton. Over the next fifteen years he turned it into Britain's most iconic music venue. And now he's telling his story: full of fond - and wild - reminiscences of the famous musicians who played at the venue, including Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Lou Reed, The Ramones, New Order, the Beastie Boys and The Smiths.This is about one man's burning desire for success against the odds, his passion for...

Who was Jesus of Nazareth? Many admire his spiritual teachings; some go further and claim him as the messiah while a few deny he ever existed at all. But everyone has an opinion about this obscure preacher who lived his brief life in one of the less significant regions of the Roman Empire; and who in being crucified died the traditional death for criminals and trouble-makers. Jesus lived in turbulent times. Under Roman rule Judea was a hotbed of nationalist political and religious interest...

Sometimes we can lose touch with ourselves so much that we don't even know we have done so, until suddenly we realize with a start that we have just been going through the motions, without really experiencing our lives. The simple fact is that in today's world, we spend so much time looking forward, rushing on to the next thing, or looking backwards, stressing and worrying about our perceived mistakes, that we rarely still ourselves and our minds enough to truly be in the present moment. I...