Shelagh Stephenson

Shirley is the youngest of eight children from a mixed race marriage. By the time she is a toddler the family have moved to the all white area of Splott and by the time she is 12 Shirley has discovered she has an extraordinary voice and can earn money singing in pubs around the docks after her father if jailed for sexual crimes. As a young teenager she begins singing and dancing in 'coloured review shows'. But it is a chance meeting with struggling agent Mike Sullivan that changes her life forever. He promises to make her a star, but has no idea of the personal sacrifice that will mean for the teenaged Shirley.

As the Falklands War looms, an RAF recruit falls for a young barmaid, but their romance is quickly complicated with some surprising news.

Moscow, 17th Century. As Russia is beset by internal strife and power struggles, Grigori the bear, chief of the army of the young Tsar Peter I, travels to France with his daughter Dashen'ka, a young apprentice magician to perform a twofold mission: - to meet with Louis XIV and seal an alliance with France, bringing back reinforcements and his niece Princess Agnes from Versailles, who is to be married to Peter. - to bring back a mysterious relic from the Mont Saint Michel, the broken spear that once belonged to the archangel Michael and that will be used to fight the terrible dragon of evil that was stirring in the North of Russia. Through fast-moving chases, collisions, on-ship action, magic, humour and emotion, will the Musketeers of the Tsar be able to rescue young Peter from the plot hatched by his sister the Grand Duchess Sophia, Tchernogor, her counsellor with a passion for dark magic and the ruthless wolverine Streltsys?