The Publishing Journey Begins – Signing My First Contract!

I’m thrilled to be able to tell you all that I’ve recently signed my first ever contract! I’m indebted to Deb at Beaten Track Publishing for believing in my manuscript and giving me the chance to unleash it on the world. The novel is going through the editing process as we speak and I’m hoping for a summer 2016 release, but I will of course let you know as soon as I have a firm date.

Caught Inside will be the debut instalment in my Boys on the Brink series, a collection of lgbt romances where young men on the brink of adulthood battle the odds to find love, acceptance, and their place in the world. The story follows seventeen-year-old Luke Savage, who accepts his girlfriend’s invitation to spend the summer at her family’s cottage in Cornwall, only to fall headlong for her cousin Theo. So is spun a web of desire and deceit, secrets and discovery from which no one can emerge unscathed.

To celebrate my forthcoming release, here’s a sneak preview…

Prologue

I have to get away.

Half running, half stumbling, I emerge from the trees and onto the beach. At once, the storm re-launches its assault. Clouds, thick and black, race each other across the sky, taking the last of the daylight with them. A fierce wind drives me backwards, hurling rain and clumps of wet sand into my face. Drops the size of bullets pelt my cheeks, the bare skin of my arms. It doesn’t matter. Anything to escape the depths of his betrayal.

The sea rises ahead of me, filling my vision. A huge steel-gray vortex, indistinguishable from the swirling clouds above, it batters itself in a frenzy against the shore. The sheer force of it, the angry ferocity, unleashes a tendril of fear in my heart. This is madness, far more advanced than anything I’ve ever attempted. I’ll never make it.

Don’t stop. Don’t think.

I drop my surfboard to the sand and strip to my boxers. My clothes are too wet to offer any protection from the chill, and they’ll only drag me down. My mind flashes to the wetsuit I’ve left back at the cottage. No time to worry about that now. Frigid pellets ping off my back and shoulders. I’m shivering but scarcely feel the cold. I take a final look at the wall of water; imagine riding it as though on the back of a blue whale. For a moment, my nerve fails.

I grit my teeth and stoop to retrieve my board. Any hesitation and my common sense will butt in. I can’t let that happen, not when this is the one thing that has the power to help me forget. With a final deep breath, I gather my courage and hurl myself into the waves.