Based on
Brian John's Angel Mountain Saga
Gateway to another world

  • The eight novels of the Angel Mountain Saga were published between 2001 and 2012, and they have become Welsh best-sellers, with more than 130,000 novels now sold, in a variety of formats.  The first book of the series is now in its tenth printing.  All of the novels are set in the Regency and Early Victorian period, in North Pembrokeshire, centred on the mountain of Carningli and the coastal Ancient Borough of Newport.  At the time, the region had little in common with Jane Austen's leafy English acres; here, it was more like the Wild West, with widespread corruption, social unrest, and violence.  There were no police, and the justices and the penal system were universally hated.  Where possible, rough justice was administered by the people themselves.  So the heroine, Martha Morgan, lived through turbulent times.  She now has a cult following, and this web site has been created so that followers of the saga, and visitors who may know nothing of her eccentricities and her adventures, can visit some of the places featured in the stories and absorb the region's very special atmosphere.
Project Launch Date was Sunday 3rd April 2016.  Boat Club, Parrog, Newport, Pembs.
In November 2019 we celebrated 20 years since the "birth" of Martha Morgan under very peculiar circumstances.........

The Eight Novels of the Saga


On Angel Mountain (Part One), Greencroft Books 2001.
    ISBN 9780905559803. 
A5 paperback, 328 pp, £6.99.

House of Angels (Part Two), Greencroft Books, 2002.
    ISBN 9780905559810. 
A5 paperback, 432 pp, £7.99.

Dark Angel (Part Three), Greencroft Books, 2003.
    ISBN 9780905559827. 
A5 paperback, 432 pp, £8.50.

Rebecca and the Angels (Part Four), Greencroft Books, 2004.
    ISBN 9780905559834. 
A5 paperback, 432 pp, £8.50.

Flying with Angels (Part Five), Greencroft Books, 2005.
    ISBN 9780905559841. 
A5 paperback, 400 pp, £7.99.

Guardian Angel (Part Six), Greencroft Books, 2008.
    ISBN 9780905559865. 
A5 paperback, 256 pp, £6.99.

Sacrifice (Part Seven), Greencroft Books, 2009.
    ISBN 9780905559902. 
A5  paperback, 352 pp, £7.99.

Conspiracy of Angels (Part Eight), Greencroft Books, 2012.
    ISBN 9780905559933. 
A5 paperback, 352 pp, £7.99.

Mood Music

This is a wonderful piece of music, which for me captures the joy and the tragedy of Martha's story..........

Mistress Martha Morgan

Martha Morgan, the heroine of the eight novels, is a complex and far from perfect character.  At the beginning of her story she is just a teenager, pregnant and suicidal after a shotgun marriage.  She is insecure and vulnerable -- and appalling things happen to her, right from the beginning.  But she is supported by angels, and gradually she finds her own strength and grows into her role as mother and as the Mistress of a near-derelict estate.  Fate determines that she becomes a young widow, and after the loss of her husband she has to run the estate although the laws of the land determine that she cannot own it.  She and her estate are coveted by many of the neighbouring squires, but she learns how to deal with her enemies and outlives all of them during the course of a long and rather too adventurous life.  She becomes a powerful and eccentric matriarch surrounded by a large extended family, and at last she goes to her grave in a manner of her own choosing.

Through one story after another Martha reveals herself as passionate, loyal, compassionate, brave and completely committed to helping those less fortunate than herself.  She refuses to conform or submit to the will of the male-dominated gentry -- and to some extent she is a very "modern" woman. But at times she shows herself to be manipulative, vain, deceitful and even vengeful, and she suffers throughout her life from violent mood swings.   Nowadays we would refer to her as suffering from bipolar condition. 

​Because her character is so complex she is greatly loved by her readers, and many of them refer to her as "Mother Wales."