Hi, I’m JL Merrow, and I’m delighted to be here today as part of the blog tour to celebrate the release of One Under, the second of my contemporary MM romances in the multi-author Porthkennack series. One Under features a romance between two characters readers of my first Porthkennack book, Wake Up Call will have already met: Mal Thomas and Jory Roscarrock—although you’d be forgiven for not recalling Jory’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in Wake Up Call!

Going Underground

Going underground is a bit of a theme in One Under. Mal is a London tube train driver, just like his dad before him, and Jory played from childhood in tunnels that run through the cliffs under his home, Roscarrock House.

Are there really tunnels through Cornish cliffs?  Perhaps not precisely where the Porthkennack books put them, but they do indeed exist—and more are being discovered all the time. In 2008, builders renovating a warehouse in Penzance discovered a network of tunnels linking it with a pub 300 yards away—one that had been popular with smugglers in the nineteenth century.

Why did smugglers dig tunnels? The obvious answer is to evade the excise men: officials of the UK government seeking to enforce tax on imports of luxury goods like brandy, gin and tobacco. The government in England was seen as remote and uncaring by Cornish people, many of whom viewed Cornwall as a separate country in its own right, and the taxes were punitively high, increasing the price of some goods by six times. This led to smuggling becoming much more socially acceptable than we would expect today. Everyone did it, or knew someone who did.

Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the Clerk. Laces for a lady; letters for a spy, Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!

• Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook’s Hill, 1906

Those who organised the smuggling could make a fortune from it. For the well off customer, it was the way to get the luxuries they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. For the poor, it meant a little extra income that might make all the difference between eating and starving. Cocking a snook at the unpopular English officials and their unfair taxes was presumably an added attraction!

But digging tunnels was also a skill that the smugglers already possessed. After fishing, the other great industry of Cornwall in the 16^th – 19^th centuries was tin mining, so many Cornishmen would have had the tools and the expertise to dig out tunnels and shore them up against collapse. That the tunnels still, in many cases, survive today is testament to their expertise in excavation.

*Earworm, anyone? I couldn’t stop the song by The Jam going through my head all the time I was writing this. Here’s a link, for those too young to remember it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE1ct5yEuVY  You’re welcome. 😉

 

Question: For me, despite suffering from claustrophobia, there’s something irresistible about exploring cave and tunnels. But how about you? Fun day out, or worst, buried-alive nightmare?

 

About One Under

London Underground worker Mal Thomas is staying in Porthkennack to recover from a traumatic experience. Getting more bad news from home is the last straw—until big, blond museum curator Jory Roscarrock steps up to offer some comfort.

As a doctor of English literature, Jory should be in a prestigious post at a top university. But a youthful indiscretion led him to abandon academia to come back to his hometown, Porthkennack, and the controlling family he’s never really felt a part of. He’s delighted to find a kindred spirit in Mal.

But Jory’s family hurt Mal’s best friend deeply, and while Jory is desperate to repair the damage, his own mistakes threaten to keep him and Mal apart. Meanwhile, Mal is torn between his feelings for Jory and his duty to his friend—and his fears that a failed relationship could be more than his shattered confidence can take. Jory must convince Mal it’s worth risking everything for their love.

Buy Links:

Riptide Publishing

Amazon

Welcome to Porthkennack, a charming Cornish seaside town with a long and sometimes sinister history. Legend says King Arthur’s Black Knight built the fort on the headland here, and it’s a certainty that the town was founded on the proceeds of smuggling, piracy on the high seas, and the deliberate wrecking of cargo ships on the rocky shore. Nowadays it draws in the tourists with sunshine and surfing, but locals know that the ghosts of its Gothic past are never far below the surface.

This collaborative story world is brought to you by five award-winning, best-selling British LGBTQ romance authors: Alex Beecroft, Joanna Chambers, Charlie Cochrane, Garrett Leigh, and JL Merrow. Follow Porthkennack and its inhabitants through the centuries and through the full rainbow spectrum with historical and contemporary stand-alone titles.

 

JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.

She writes across genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance and the paranormal, and is frequently accused of humour. Her novella Muscling Through is a 2013 EPIC ebook Award finalist. She is a member of the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet organising team.

Connect with JL:

• Website: www.jlmerrow.com
• Twitter: @jlmerrow
• Facebook: facebook.com/jl.merrow
• Goodreads: goodreads.com/.J_L_Merrow

To celebrate this release, one lucky winner will receive their choice of a book from JL’s backlist! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on March 24, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries.