An Uncommon Betrothal is releasing in paperback this Sunday the 16th!
The book is about a lonely and isolated disabled gentleman, Alexos Fox, who basically buries himself in his classical study and avoids virtually all socialisation outside of the house. He feels listless and undesirable as a result of his scars and limited mobility, being a polio survivor, and more than that, he’s terrified of being caught easily by policeman if he ever does go where the gay people are: he’s resolved himself to being alone and unfucked, unfucking, for the rest of his life.
Enter the new butler, Henry Sutton, appointed by his uncle, the outgoing retiree. Harry’s Uncle Reginald has quite the little plan in place: his idea is to affiance these two, after a fashion, to one another, and Harry immediately attempts a seduction of his new employer with aplomb and verve.
Given that Mr Sutton is tall, fat, muscular, tattooed, and pierced? Well. How is Alexos to resist?
An Uncommon Betrothal is an erotic romance, but it’s about half-balanced between the initial relationship between Alexos and Harry, how they come to like one another, how they come together, and also about Alexos’ own exploration of queerness and desire, as well as his own desirability.
This is a standalone novel, but there’ll be many more books featuring these two and their adventures both together and in parallel, so there’s a lot more disabled kinky sex in the 1920s to come!
There’s still time to pre-order and have it with you very soon – you can grab your paperback copy through Barnes & Noble or Waterstone‘s, and Amazon has paperback and hardback copies! And of course, you can pick up the eBook wherever you buy eBooks, including directly from me.
If you are in Leeds or Bradford, or you’re able to travel from farther afield to be with us, we’re running the launch at Wharf Chambers, which is a nice accessible gay bar very near to the bus station. We’re in the function room of Wharf, and there are two entrances. You can either come in via the front door, where you have to step up two steps, or you can go down the side alley and come in via the back, and it’s got a much easier ramp for a wheelchair or frame. The back room is on two levels, but has ramps to make moving between them easier.
The event is free, but it’s very helpful if you do grab a free ticket to give us a better idea of how many people are coming! You can grab tickets here on Eventbrite – as well as the free ones, you can also buy a £5 ticket, where we’ll have some wine set aside for you and that’s guaranteed, and you’ll also get a bookmark and a badge of your choice!
As well as a reading and a Q&A, we’ll have a bunch of books for sale – copies of An Uncommon Betrothal, of course, but also various of my novellas; there’ll also be a lot of badges and such to pick from!
Pre-orders directly from me have gone out except for some larger orders that are multiple books.
As well as advertising in the local papers, I’ve put up a bunch of local posters and flyers over the past few months, and a bunch of new ones this week.
We have ordered cheeses, we have ordered some apples, we have ordered chutney, we have ordered crackers, we have ordered WINE!
And in the pre-ordered ones sent from us, as well as the books for sale on Sunday, I’ve used my ex libris stamp that has a Japanese water demon on it, as well as some anchor stamps! I’ve stamped about 50 books tonight, so I just need to do the rest of our stock tomorrow.
My children, as you can imagine, were desperately trying to get close enough to get black ink on their noses or paws or whatever other part of their bodies they could use to smear it all over the flat, but I manfully and cunningly prevented their advance.
They have chewed on all the boxes accessible to them in protest.
Very excited to see everybody this Sunday, and hope that everyone enjoys their books as they receive them, please feel free to tag me in posts and such once you get them, and of course, let me know how you enjoy the new book. If you can’t afford a copy at the moment, your local library should be able to order copies in – paperbacks will be available definitely, although I think the only digital book loan service AUB is available through is Overdrive.
If you are able, I would very much appreciate reviews on whatever platforms you use – wherever you buy the books, on GoodReads, on Romance.io, or TheStoryGraph – and of course for you to recommend the book to whomever you think might like it.
I would particularly appreciate nominations for any Indie Geek Award titles you think any of my books are suitable for, but especially disabled rep by a disabled author!
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