Sod’s law takes no prisoners. Their love organs thwack into action. They are hopeless, rendered subordinate to the whims of fancy. Turbulence and extravagance, ecstasy and fantasy, drunken feuds and bloodied knuckles – these are the things they enjoy watching on television. They love, they fuck, they do it all and with each other. They sleep nose to nose or brow to brow, depending on the day of the week. They are organised in their love. Regular passion is not enough.

Reveries is my (first) novel. I self-published it via Amazon’s Kindle Direct publishing service in 2019, while living in Sri Lanka. I would call it a magic realist tragicomedy. Meaning: weird stuff happens but no one thinks it’s that weird; it’s sad; it’s (supposed to be) funny.

It deals with many of the struggles of youth: loneliness, shame, growing pains, and diarrhoea. It is also about the things which bring us together as adults, and tear us apart. Love, heat, passion. Addiction and self-loathing. Masturbation – yes. A son runs away and a father disappears, leaving mother and sister screaming at each other in an amphitheatre. It is dotted with fairytale elements and dollops of lewd British humour, and will hopefully make you think of family, laugh with your belly, and be moved.

Read a full review here. What others have to say about it:

“…packed with the weird and wonderful it takes you on a magic journey through the lives of two supposedly ordinary kids. As their lives develop the intrigue and the laughs just keep on going. It made me think of Jonathon Saffran Foer and 100 Years of Solitude, but more rude and wholeheartedly British.”

“A transcendental yomp through the pulmonary valve of human relationship, ruck and ridicule.”

“It was my choice for book club and it didn’t disappoint.”

“…part David Foster Wallace, part Lionel Schriver, part durian fruit. Excellent Christmas present.”

This is the blurb:

Richard is a victim of tempestuous bowels, Nicole of delayed tooth eruption. After fractious and bizarre childhoods, they meet and engage in a fractious and bizarre relationship. It ends and they lead separate lives, hers fractious, his bizarre. Unknown to Richard, Nicole gives birth to twins. Boy, girl; deluded, difficult. Boy runs away, girl is a maladaptive daydreamer. An all-consuming addiction to tantric self-pleasure means that Richard, too, is miles away, in a world of his own. It falls to a private detective with questionable morals, Ronald, to pick up the pieces.

Cover artworks by Finnegan Travers, Tom Stockley, Leah Kirby, Dawood Vilcassim and Lucy Vyain.

You can buy Reveries on Amazon. (It felt like a good idea at the time.) The paperback is just £5.99, which is basically the lowest price I could put it. You can also read the first 10,000 words for free with kindle unlimited.