Reece Winner for the Win: The Making of a Teen Humanitarian

When twelve-year-old Reece Winner's parents buy a pub overlooking the stunning coastline of North Cornwall, his life appears perfect and probably would be, if it wasn't for the bullying he occasionally has to deal with. But things take an unexpected turn for the worse, when his parents split up and his father's potential bankruptcy threatens to destroy everything he values. He is befriended by Kara, a classmate who is carrying her own emotional baggage, following her father's suicide three years previously. She offers Reece consolation and support, while helping him to face the tragedies that conspire to overwhelm him. However, she becomes much more than a shoulder to cry on and inspires Reece to chase an ambition that most teenagers could only dream of.

Kevin Armes is a former Health Service Clerical Officer, a Publican of over twenty years and a parent to a fifteen-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. He enjoyed, as a child, the adventures of Enid Blyton and since those early days has regularly visited Cornwall in the south-west of England, where so many of her books were set. Therefore, it was perhaps inevitable that he should set his début novel in this same location. After selling his last pub business in 2010, he decided to commit fully to writing and moved the family to the county that has inspired him, to live in the picturesque fishing village of Polperro. Having travelled extensively, he has a keen interest in world affairs and this has infused him with a desire to draw the attention of young readers to the crises affecting children in some of the poorest and most deprived areas on the planet. His intention is to take his main character, Reece Winner, to one such location in each subsequent book. He and his wife Juren have sponsored the education of three young relations in The Philippines and hope that his writing can enable them to achieve other humanitarian ambitions in the parts of the world depicted in future stories.