FAQ: About the Books

As much as it was a privilege being able to spend the amount of time I did with Ardy & Caspian, I think their story is done? And I do feel I left them very much in love, and in a good and hopeful place? You are free to feel differently, of course! 😉

If I ever get the chance to revisit the world of Ardy, then I would absolutely love to write books for George, Nathaniel, & Ellery. (Please bear in mind, though, that if anything were to happen on this front, it wouldn’t be for quite a while yet!)

This is a question that the book deliberately doesn’t dwell on because I really didn’t want to be encouraging readers to obsess about the specifics of a trans woman’s body. Romance is in very large part about allowing the reader to live a fantasy and the particular fantasy I wanted Viola to embody included being able to be accepted as a trans woman without having to constantly worry about getting clocked or outed.

Two answers here.

The first is that the question of what the real historical attitudes of LGBTQ+ people were in any historical period, unless that period is incredibly recent, are actually pretty hard to pin down. There’s a tendency to assume that historical attitudes to, well, everything are just modern attitudes to everything but getting linearly worse the further back you go, and that’s not true. Nor do we actually know how people who died a century or more ago actually felt about anything in their day to day lives. We can make guesses based on the writings those people (those people who actually had their writings recorded, so mostly the rich and powerful) left behind but guesses are all they are. Assuming that every conversation in a Regency household sounded exactly like a Jane Austen novel is like assuming every conversation in an American household sounds like an episode of Succession.

The second is that I’m a novelist, not a historian. I use historical settings to explore themes and ideas I like and find interesting, and I don’t feel any particular obligation to hold to any standard of “realism” that doesn’t make for a good story. Nobody should be trying to learn history from my books.

They won’t, I’m afraid. Their story is very much a self-contained one in Something Fabulous—but you do see plenty of them in Something Spectacular!

Luc is taller (at 6ft 4in), with Oliver closer to 6ft.

Yes! Husband Material is out right the heck now! I’m beyond thrilled I was able to continue Luc & Oliver’s story and that I get to conclude their arc in Father Material. Joining the London Calling universe will be a spin-off series called Material World. Book 1, 10 Things That Never Happened, is due to be published in October 2023. The release date for the as-yet-untitled second book is to be confirmed. (Jonathan from 10 Things and Tyler from Material World book 2 both have cameos in Husband Material.)

Yes! Kate Kane 4, Smoke & Ashes, is out right now! More information here.

Because she does not currently fancy men at all in any way. My experience is that quite a lot of gay people have heterosexual relationships at some point because there’s an awful lot of social pressure to do, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re all secretly bisexual. Of course, that’s problematic because it supports this idea that bisexuality doesn’t exist or is somehow cheating. Basically it’s complicated and, in this specific instance, I came down on the side of a homosexual character who has had one arguably heterosexual experience rather than a bisexual character, but I think either would have been a valid call to make.

Yes, it’s sort of meant to be ironic. The idea behind the books is that Kate is the slightly Mary Sue heroine of a YA romance who has since grown up. Part of the inspiration for the character, in fact, was that I’ve always wanted to know what happens to those girl after the book ends, because there’ll come a point when you’re 25 and your boyfriend is still a 17 year old vampire.

Yes and no? Basically the situation is: books 1-3 are traditionally published but in ebook only. Books 4&5, which are self-published, have / will have paperbacks simply because I wanted to make them 🙂

That story was very much intended to be a standalone, so no plans for more.

I’m afraid not. The deal was for ebook and audio only as the publisher doesn’t produce physical books.

The contract with the company who previously held the audio rights for Waiting for the Flood has expired, reverting the audio rights to me. My intent moving forward is to try and re-sell the audio rights for Waiting along with the rights for Chasing the Light so that an audio package is created to match the new edition of Waiting (plus Chasing the Light) that will be published by Sourcebooks. Ultimately it will be up to any company who is interested in buying the rights to Waiting + Chasing (should there be such a company) to decide whether they wish to re-licence the old edition of Waiting or re-record a new one.

If I am unable to sell the rights to the Waiting + Chasing duo, I will look at buying the licence to the previously recorded edition of Waiting myself. For the moment, however, an audio edition of Waiting is temporarily unavailable and I ask for your patience during this process.

If you have previously purchased the audio edition of Waiting it will remain in your audio library.

In Vino is temporarily unavailable because I sold the rights to the entire Spires series, including the short stories, to Sourcebooks. These are being re-published in trade paperback over the next few years. In Vino will be included as part of the new edition of For Real but, as I no longer hold the rights to the story, I cannot currently distribute it myself.

Because when the audio rights for Glitterland were bought, the book didn’t include Aftermath.

My feeling is that even contemporary-set romance stories to an extent take place in imagined worlds. So even though they’re not direct sequels to each other, my contemporary romances often have overlapping characters, ideas and settings. Spires is how I refer to this collection of thematically linked but otherwise standalone stories. Currently, they’re Glitterland, Waiting for the Flood, For Real, and Pansies.

Niall will get his own book! It’s called Fool’s Gold, and it’s part of the very exciting deal I signed with Sourcebooks Casablanca, that will see Glitterland, Waiting for the Flood, For Real, & Pansies repackaged and rereleased. Also part of the deal will be a book for Dom the Dom (from For Real) called Rough Ride.

Yes! It is! You can find out all about it here.

Currently there’s a sort of epilogue-type thing called Glitterland: Aftermath which is currently bundled with a copy of the book. I may do something else with Ash & Darian in the repackaged edition of Glitterland. But that very much depends on what feels right to me and my editor.

As with most things in publishing—you can never say never! But my dance card is very full for the foreseeable future. However, In Vino, a short story (and previous newsletter freebie) featuring Jasper in all his hot-mess glory will be republished in the upcoming rerelease of For Real.