Restaurant owner turned author Steve Barton has published Burnt! Food, Feuds and Failures with Spire Publishing. The book chronicles Steve's adventures whilst opening and running a restaurant in the Lake District. Here's what he has to say about the experience:

“And the winner of Master Chef Goes Large is….”
After a disappointing un-televised and un-glamorous damp day filming at a Birmingham Travel Lodge, Steve Barton was booted out of this popular BBC cooking competition.
 
Undaunted by this minor setback, he turned his back on the bustle of the city he loved to open an idyllic riverside restaurant in the calms of the Lake District. 
 
Burnt is for anyone who has ever dreamed of owning or running their own restaurant. A stark tale of hiring’s and firings, evil landlords, scrapping lesbians, swingers, marriage, devastating floods and a flirt with bankruptcy.
 
If you have ever dreamt of owning or running a restaurant you really ought to read this cautionary tale first. Then again, perhaps you shouldn't....
"Just remember one thing; sometimes your dreams can keep you awake at night"

Steve's personal website.
Burnt! The blog of the book.

Burnt! will be released in approximately two weeks.

"Duncan Gillespie has been contributing a weekly column to the "Strathspey and Badenoch Herald" as the Man in the Manse, for the past 14 years. With his spell at the "Strathy" now drawn to a close, I'm delighted that he has chosen to publish a selection of these columns as a "best of " collection.

Duncan has an innate ability to write illuminating prose on most subjects under the sun - and indeed beyond. As the title of his column suggests, religion is a recurring theme in his writing, and he is a man of religious convictions, but his columns have a much wider appeal than that - there's something for everyone.

In more than fifty years of journalism, his inkwell has seemingly never run dry. His talent and passion shine through, whether he is writing about ghostly visitors, Robert Burns, the Newtonmore Haggis Hounds, the Pearly Gates, or the sins of the past.. I hope that these "Man in the Manse" columns, brought together for the first time, are received by readers new and old with the same enthusiasm as went into their making."

Gavin Musgrove, Editor "Strathspey & Badenoch Herald"

ISBN-10: 1897312431

ISBN-13: 978-1897312438

The catastrophe plunged the world back into a new Dark Age, where six months of summer light followed six months of winter darkness. It brought Mankind to the brink of extinction.

The cataclysm unleashed chaos but it also released Merdynn from his long spellbound imprisonment and for millennia he struggled to help keep the flame of Man alive while he searched for the ancient bloodline of legend. As the increasing threat to Britain grew he despaired of ever finding the link to the past until the day he came across the remains of a raided village. There were only two survivors, a boy and girl.

Forty years later Britain stands against the darkness and that boy leads the strongest war band in Britain. His name is Arthur. The Arthur of Celtic legend returns at the time of Britain's greatest need to unite the warriors of a divided land in this dark and compelling tale of heroism and despair where conflicting loyalties and outright betrayals are played out against a bloody war that threatens to overwhelm and destroy everything Arthur's sworn to protect.

ISBN 1897312350

ISBN-13: 978-1897312353