The North London morning was grey and grudging.
Then someone stole Maria’s sunshine.

A twin pushchair.
An ordinary possession to anyone else.
To Maria, something irreplaceable.

She could accept that it was gone.

She could.

But Maria has never been very good at giving up.

Sometimes what we refuse to lose is worth far more than money.

Some things are harder to face than others.

A perfect smile.
A double life.
Small lies that become dangerous choices.
And a family left holding the pieces.

Everyone has secrets.

Some can be forgiven.

Others carry a weight that can break everything.

Osam Mensah is a young Ghanaian graduate with one overriding ambition: to build a better life in Europe. After several failed attempts and considerable struggle, he finally makes the journey to England — only to discover that the reality is very different from the dream.

As Osam struggles to establish himself, persistence and hard work gradually bring him the success he has been searching for. Yet the more he embraces his new life and Western culture, the further he drifts from the person he once was — and from the people he left behind.

When he eventually returns to Ghana, Osam is forced to confront the consequences of that transformation and make choices that will determine the course of his life.

Some time has passed since Osam Mensah made the choices that shaped his life in The Plaza of Illusion. Still carrying the consequences of those decisions, he finds that the past is not as easily left behind as he once believed.

As old ties, unresolved conflicts and unexpected circumstances draw him back towards the life he thought he had escaped, Osam must confront not only the people and places that formed him, but also the man he has become.

The Claiming continues the journey begun in The Plaza of Illusion, bringing Osam Mensah’s story to its final conclusion.

The magnificent city of Toledo.
An adult college.
A hidden basement.
A locked door.
Twenty years of silence.
And one woman who dared to open it.

Some doors should never be opened.
Some secrets should never be kept.

It was supposed to be just another dive.

A world that should not exist.
A people the surface has never known.
And a discovery that changes everything.

Adam went beneath the water expecting to return to the world he knew.

He found another.

Some worlds are hidden for a reason.

Life can change when you least expect it.

Matt Lane thought he knew where his life was going.

Then, almost without warning, the certainties he had built his life around begin to disappear.

Aranjuez. Toledo. New encounters. Unexpected choices. And the possibility that losing one life might sometimes be the beginning of another.

Because none of us really knows…

what’s round the corner.

A deeply personal collection of reflections on life, love, family and experiences of loss.

Written from the author’s perspective and emotions at different moments, these poems explore personal growth, memory and emotional truth.

At times hopeful, at times painful, Life, Love & Loss Poems is a journey through the experiences that shape us — and the feelings that remain.