A Dangerous Man: where having it all is the worst thing you could have …

Michael Jones, a young gay artist and part-time hooker, will do anything to stage his first exhibition. When he falls in love with rich financier Jack Hutchinson, he seems set to achieve his goal. But as Michael becomes caught between the unforgiving territory of smoky-bar Hackney and the green-garden luxury of upper class London, the consequences of his uncompromising pursuit leave him having to fight for all he holds dear, and in the only way he knows how.

What do you really want out of life? If you could actually get – I mean really get – what you dream of, how would it affect you? Would it be a blessing, or a curse?

What Michael, my hero, or perhaps anti-hero is the better description, of gay thriller A Dangerous Man (Amber Allure Press, 15 September 2013), really wants more than anything in the world is to have an exhibition of the art he creates and is obsessed by. Art, and specifically his black and white pencil drawings of the world around him and the world in his own head, is the one thing that gets him by in the life he lives somewhere at the edges of society. Because Michael is many things: a hooker; a talented artist; a man looking (though he doesn’t know it) for love; but most of all a man overwhelmed and constrained by the traumas of his past.

So when he meets Jack, a richer, older businessman with a good steady career and a happy family life, it’s an attraction of opposites, and Michael is quick to fall in love. For him, love changes everything, and it’s then that the trouble begins.

In my own life, I do always seem to be striving for something and hoping things next year will be different from this year and so on – though actually I consider myself to have a fairly happy life, all in all. But – much like everyone else, I imagine – I do wonder how my life would be if I was richer or if I wrote the next Harry Potter or had a really grand country estate where I lived in an enormous house and could have all the gorgeous flowers and topiary I secretly long for, etc etc. Dream on, eh!

But if I somehow made all these dreams come true, would I actually cope very well? My ability to manage the money I have now, for instance, is really not very good – figures often confuse me and I’m hopeless at arithmetic. Thank goodness I married an accountant then – as who knows where I’d be otherwise. Having just enough to get by suits me, when I come to think of it – I don’t have to worry about it so much.

In the same way, if a book I wrote suddenly made the bestseller list, yes of course it would be lovely. But as a writer and an introvert, social skills aren’t my strong suit, and I think having to deal with the resulting publicity and media frenzy would probably drive me insane. I don’t know how JK Rowling does it, but more power to her elbow for surviving.

And if I did magically get that dream country estate and garden? Well, cleaning it all and doing the mowing wouldn’t be on my list of favourite tasks, and I certainly wouldn’t like the thought of being responsible for all the staff I’d need – I’ve got enough responsibility as a PA to just one person at work. I wouldn’t know what to do with any more people!

So maybe, just maybe, getting what I really wanted wouldn’t be the passport to my ideal life I’ve always imagined it would be. The same can be said to be true of Michael in my story also. Getting what he wants brings him a whole new set of problems; the past he’s tried to leave behind rises up to haunt him and threatens his relationship with Jack in ways he can’t even begin to imagine. How will he respond, and in the end which of his two great loves will he choose: Jack, or art?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 Anne Brooke’s fiction has, in the very distant past, been shortlisted for the Harry Bowling Novel Award, the Royal Literary Fund Awards and the Asham Award for Women Writers. She has also twice been the winner of the DSJT Charitable Trust Open Poetry Competition but doesn’t quite know how she managed it. She is the author of eight published novels, her latest being The Executioner’s Cane, an epic fantasy novel. It is available as a free book for the foreseeable future.

In addition, her short stories are regularly published by Amber Allure Press, Wilde City Press and Untreed Reads. She has a secret passion for theatre and chocolate, preferably at the same time. More information can be found at www.annebrooke.com.

Specialties: Writing crime and fantasy novels, and a wide range of short stories, both erotic and literary.

Anne Brooke

Gay Reads UK

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GIVEAWAY

To win a copy of A Dangerous Man in ebook version, please leave a comment on the post and the winner will be picked in one week’s time. Good luck, and may all the dreams you think you can manage come true!