Archie - A Gay, Gothic Romance

"Archie" is my latest release for the Kindle.

This is a Gothic horror story concerning two young men who are discovering their sexuality in Victorian society.

Archie and Percy come from different strata of Victorian Society, but their friendship quickly blossoms into an intimate one.

Can their idealised, romantic friendship survive the class difference and the Victorian disapproval of close male friendships? But there are worse tests to come. The story takes them into the world of the Occult and into truly shocking horrors.

Writing this book was a very interesting project. Unlike some of my other gay novels, this one is not so focussed on descriptions of sexual intimacy, but concentrates on the two heroes and their reactions to their mutal attraction.

The style I developed for the novel is a slow, romantic one and it was fascinating to weave an Occult aspect to the narrative. The two main characters are naive and much of the book deals with this and how it leads them into an horrific situation.

I have been interested in Occult ideas for many years and for this novel "Archie" I took, very loosely, some occult theories and developed my own fictionalised occult practices. Frankly it may take a bit of courage to read the middle secion of the novel, but do remember it is only fiction!

Dreams - What is Real?

"Dreams" has been published for the Kindle.

This is a five volume novel. Volumes 1 and 2 are available for you to try, or you can go straight to getting the complete 5 volume novel.

This was an interesting project, where I wrote each volume from one person's point of view. As you read through the stories, you realise how much things are misinterpreted by the characters.

I think this is true in life. We usually only know things from our own personal experience and our interpretation of those experiences. We can never be certain what the actuality is, unless we cross-examine people for their experience of the same events.

In "Dreams" the particular area covered in the multi-personality accounts is an individual's sexuality. Is someone straight or gay? Or are there degrees in between? If a "straight" man fools around with another man, does this mean he is not entirely straight?

Then again we also have the complication where, socially, it is often felt necessary to be "straight" or hide one's gay nature. People even are confused themselves, sometimes, as to their own sexuality.

So in "Dreams" we have men having sex together, while they work out their own sexuality as well as the sexuality of the other man.

Another aspect that I explored in the novel is the nature of dreams and the almost psychic forces that may be operating to determine events.

As a writer, it was fascinating to be able to create entirely different scenarios in the middle of the novel, by creating sleeping dreams for the characters. I also created some "lucid" dreams where the character was aware that they were dreaming. Creatively, as a writer, this is a very interesting area.

Something I had fun with in the final volume was using a writing device whereby I wrote sex scenes between a young straight man and a young gay man without compromising the straightness of the straight gay. But I won't give away how I did that at this point!