daktaris

I have for some time intended reading your story, recommended to me by colleagues, but time constraints got in the way. What a humdinger of a tale I missed by waiting so long. Trev is truly the modern day Huck Finn on steroids. Changing the Mississippi to the Five Seas and river shady guys morphed into a Cali cartel queen, you have magically created a story which is educational, exiting, entertaining, and erstwhile erotic. Power to your pen, I say. I shall not be so slow to read more of this gang of four! Adam.

It is interesting that Granger continues to carry on polite correspondence with his former captor Talleyrand. Surely there can be few more fascinating characters to feature in turn of the 18th/19th century French intrigue than this man. You will know, Mark, that compared to this skilled, sly, schemer the more popularly known Italian Machiavelli was but a mewling babe at the breast. If he were alive today he would no doubt be occupying what then Candidate Trump labelled "The Swamp" as a millionaire lobbyist for those big business interests so successfully working inside the Beltway. Talleyrands there will always be, regrettably. Grangers are few and far between.....as are writers of your level of attention to detail, sir. Well done again. Adam.

Mr Arbour, I think you are among the most accomplished historically correct authors currently writing. I thoroughly enjoy your well researched stories. You know that George III had several episodes of 'regression dementia' as it came to be called. The one you recount in this chapter is the most dramatic. North American readers probably won't realise the huge gap extant between the 95 per cent of ordinary people and the 5 per cent of the gentry and aristocracy in Britain in the time of which you are writing. Granger and his ilk could get away with things which ordinary people certainly could not. And, for the sake of these stories, a damn good thing too!! So George III was thought of by the common Londoner as 'a bit sick in the head' . But he was hardly considered mad. So onward, wordsmith Mark, to the Neva and the gun ports of Peterburg's golden shining Admiralty. I look forward to every word. Adam

I'm looking for upbeat stories, slow on graphic sex (though it can build), featuring young teens including minorities and Muslim youth, with adventure enough to hold an average 12-16 year old boy. For reasons why and some idea of the type of stories my colleagues and I are already using please read this week's posting on www.daktaris.WordPress. com. Thanks. You'll be helping a lot of hurting kids. Doc.

A native New Englander now living in Virginia, I've spent some years in both the EU and Canada, so have a range of experience of police practice as a traumatologist. Generally, cops here are much more in your face. There is less courtesy. There is an assumption that the suspect will be violent. It comes from the gun culture I think. In the US today we are becoming neurotic about safety and are seeing perps on every street corner, bringing up kids afraid of their own shadow and scared to ride their bikes a single city block. This creates misconduct both ways - police to civilians and vice versa. If there is fear everywhere then how can there be trust anywhere?

I am part of a team of medics and support staff and volunteers working in North America and the EU in a counseling rôle in assisting teenage members of refugee and asylum-seeking families with lifestyle issues. My team is particularly focussed on issues surrounding non-traditional sexual orientation, but within the context of everything else of course: new country, language, political and legal system, children's rights, gender equality, social system and etiquette, religious and moral norms, ethics and cultural ethos; in short, the works! So, these 11-17 year-olds are dealing with the nightmare of their raging pubescent hormones whilst all the rest of their known world has also undergone a tectonic shift. As there are currently only eight of us working as team leaders in this specialty - three in the US, and one each in Canada, Germany, Sweden, Spain and the UK - we are seeing only a tiny fraction of those referred to us and those only twice monthly. As a consequence, my colleagues and I have found good, age-appropriate stories with a strong, supportive message to be one excellent resource we can call upon between our sessions with those we call our protégés. I need your help finding these. We begun a very amateurish blog a few weeks ago seeking help from writers and others because we simply do not have time to trawl the web to find the right stuff. I am probably breaking the code of etiquette of webism or whatever by doing this, but I'm desperate. If you have time, and have a care for LGBT Asylum-seeking teens, please read some of the posts on www.daktaris.WordPress.com and either reply to me there, or comment here or email me directly. We desperately need your input. We also need simple moral support, just to feel somebody among the community cares about these kids. At present we are beginning to think we are speaking into an uncaring black hole. Blessings. Doc.