One family. Three generations. Three epic stories

Historical fiction at its best… Three engrossing novels following the fortunes of one family from World War One to the turn of the new millennium.

This Time Tomorrow

Two brothers. One woman. A nation at war.

When Guy Searight reluctantly volunteers to fight with the British army in the early days of World War One, he leaves behind his girlfriend, Mary. While away fighting, Guy's younger brother, Jack, seizes an opportunity to woo Mary for himself.

Forthright and self-assured, Guy has always looked out for his confident but frail brother and blithely promises his fretting mother that he'll look out for him when Jack's turn comes to join up. But embittered by Jack's betrayal, Guy vows that when Jack has to face the horrors of war for himself, he won't be there to look after him.

When the brothers are reunited in the trenches of the Western Front, their thoughts are both with Mary. As Jack buckles under the strain of war, can Guy sustain his anger and allow his brother to suffer alone?

A shocking event, catastrophic in its intensity and barbaric in its conclusion, forces Guy to re-evaluate his relationship with his brother, with Mary and ultimately himself.

The Unforgiving Sea

Ten men adrift on a lifeboat. Only one will live to tell the tale.

June 1944, World War Two: a convoy ship is torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat. Most on board are killed but ten sailors manage to clamber aboard a lifeboat.

Robert Searight emerges as the sole survivor. Traumatized by the experience, he returns to his English village to recuperate. His only task is to return a dead friend's wedding ring to Joanna, the man's widow. But Joanna is nowhere to be found.

His return to the village brings back the heartache he felt when, a year previously, his fiancée, troubled by her own past, broke off their relationship.

But ultimately, it's his own dark secret that he must confront before he can come to terms with his broken heart and the trauma of having survived The Unforgiving Sea.

The Red Oak

The past is always with us; it's just that sometimes we don't see it.

Summer 2004. Tom Searight can't relate to his 14-year-old daughter, Charlotte, or his cantankerous old father, Robert. But his life really disintegrates when he discovers his wife of 15 years, Julie, is having an affair with Charlotte's favourite teacher.

A chance letter from France takes Tom on a journey to learn about the life of his great uncle, Guy Searight, a veteran of the First World War. But as Tom learns more about his family's tragic past and his own father's turbulent childhood, his future becomes increasingly uncertain.

“Have just read ‘The Red Oak', and hardly took a breath. I thoroughly enjoyed every page. You can tell a good author by the way the opening of the book grips you, wants to make you read on, and this story really does all that. Colley made the family so real, it was almost as if we were there with them. A wonderful book.”

“Rupert Colley is a truly a gifted writer with a great talent for understanding human nature so well and able to put real feelings into the written word…. I can't praise his writing enough.”

“When I wasn't able to read it (The Red Oak), I was thinking about it.”

Historical fiction with heart and drama.