Silver Springs
A lot goes on in the novels in my 'Silver Springs' collection of contemporary family life dramas and where characters from the LGBTQ+ community always lead the story. But they're a little different from what you might expect. I do put my characters through it a bit, whether its falling in love with another man for the first time in your thirties, wanting to do the right thing by your wider family, coming to terms with loss, finally succeeding in being the person you always knew that you were, they all prove that gay and bisexual characters can undoubtedly lead mainstream fiction and appeal to an audience in the wider community as well as in our own. Because the themes are universal. They apply to every human, man or woman, straight or gay'.
In the ‘THE THIRD WIFE’, Liam is thirty years old, married with three kids and works on construction sites. He’s never been out of work. He accepts a job that takes him to the other side of the country from Sunday to Friday and he rents a room in the house of an openly gay journalist called Neal. Slowly but surely, the friendship they strike up turns into something much deeper. and it knocks Liam for six. He’s never had feelings for another man before and yet he feels like he’s found the missing piece of his life. But when he tells his wife Gina and then finds out what she’s been getting up to whilst he’s been away, his problems are only just beginning.
Then there’s ‘THE GUEST HOUSE’ where the leading character of Peter checks into a guest house to try and get some peace after family traumas following his father’s death. Peter has to come to terms with finding out that his family have lied to him all his life and at the same time, he meets and falls in love with Cameron who is the son of the guest house owner, Vicky. But when tragedy strikes, his sense of loss leads to him finding love again but in a highly unexpected place.
In ‘UNCLE DAD’ Sean wants to fulfil his sister Nadine's dying wish that he adopts her two kids when she passes. But his mother fights him for custody because she doesn't want her gay son to adopt her grandchildren, even though that's what both the kids themselves want and their mother, her daughter, wants too.
But why is Sean's partner so dead set against him adopting his nephew and niece? He was brought up in a children's home so he should understand better than anyone their need to feel safe and loved. What dark secret is he hiding that makes him never want to be a parent himself?
In ‘MEN ARE NOT BULLET PROOF’ a group of straight men in various relationship dilemmas and who are struggling to come to terms with what it means to be a ‘modern’ man, all turn to their gay mate Adam to help sort them out. But he’s got his own relationship course to navigate with the enigmatic Luke. But he still manages to be there for his mates, especially his brother Richard who finds himself in a bitter custody battle with his soon to be ex-wife, and they manage to turn adversity into something they can all learn from.
I'll soon be starting work on the next novel in this series which is called 'FIND ME AGAIN', in which two men who fell for each other back in the eighties but couldn't be together, meet up again through an extraordinary set of circumstances forty years later. But with the realities of their lives still working against them being together, it'll be a question of whether or not they're finally able to take that chance on what they've always known to be the truth.
All the novels in my 'Silver Springs' series are available from Amazon worldwide.
Incidentally, you may be wondering where the name 'Silver Springs' comes from? Well. It's the title of a song by my all-time music icon, Stevie Nicks. She wrote it in 1976 for the Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' album but it was left off the final album cut. A criminally insane decision in my opinion but Stevie has been able to bring it back into the Fleetwood Mac live set in recent years. I was at their show in Paris in 2013 and they closed the show with 'Silver Springs'. I couldn't help it. I cried buckets at the fantastic performance of such a wonderful song from an artist I appreciate so very much.