Book Title: Save The Date
Author/Publisher/Cover Artist: Sophia Soames
Release Date: May 1 2026
Tense/POV: first person/alternating POV
Genres: Contemporary MM Romance
Tropes: Bi awakening, age gap, forced proximity, only one bed, hurt-comfort, single Dad
Themes: TV Married at first sight style show
Heat Rating: 4 flames
Length: 100k words/350 pages
It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited
Blurb
Peter Felton
If there was a meme for being a total cliché?
That would be me.
It wouldn’t even need a description, just a pathetic snapshot of me in my threadbare pyjamas standing at my filthy kitchen table staring into the wall like a loser.
Because that is exactly who I am. The middle-aged widower caught up in his very own hell of a midlife crisis. The guy who isn’t over his dead wife. The single dad. Pathetic, Peter. Utterly pathetic.
The guy who thought… I don’t know what I’d been thinking. Because if someone had told me that at forty-five, I’d willingly go on a reality TV dating show?
Yeah. You get the picture. The memes were brutal. Every single one of them was bouncing around the internet like a contagious super-virus. The internet was forever. And so was love.
It’s not who I am, this… this joke of a man I’ve become. It never was, and now? Now I’m standing here wondering how I will ever leave the house again.
Oliver Jacobs
When I was a kid, I thought I was invincible. Turns out… sometimes I was. Sometimes my confidence took me places, and anyway. When you fall? You get up. Make a plan, organize your options and run with the obvious solution. I was good like that.
But I hadn’t counted on… this one plan going so very very wrong. So terribly awfully wrong.
Because my requests had been simple and easy. Youngish, around my age. No facial hair. Nice. No kids, no baggage.
Also gay.
And then? They’d gifted me… Peter Fenton. Everything I hadn’t asked for. And now he is all I want.
So… should I… Save the date? Or just swallow down the fact that Oliver Jacobs… is about to make the biggest mistake of his life.
Save the Date is a standalone novel set in the Square Mile Rogues universe.
Content warnings for having lost your partner, violent grief and finding out that love… really matters.
“Wanna sit on the sofa? I don’t think my back can take more of this sitting on the floor,” I tried. Please. I can’t do this.
“Not sure I want to get up. I’m hoping this corner here is a blind spot for those cameras.”
“You’ve got the mic around your neck still. We both do.”
“Contract…and all that.”
“Yes. I have no idea what I was thinking.”
“Well, you must have known what you were getting yourself into.”
He smiled, the man. Good. At least he was easy to talk to, still clinging on to his paper cup. He’d chewed the edges, like a teenager. Nervous disposition then. A bit like my Ed.
I don’t know why, but in a way, I was a little calmer now.
“You want to hear something ridiculous?” I smiled. Couldn’t help it, gently spurred on by the enthusiastic way he nodded.
“I’m kind of…relieved to have been paired up with you. I mean, the pressure is definitely off. I don’t think I was ready for this, not at all. And now…I mean. I don’t have to woo you or try to make you like me…”
I fell silent. Again.
“You need to control that mouth.” He didn’t sound angry. Just amused. “You’ve already made yourself a good ten memes, and what has it been? Half an hour of being on this show?”
“I have, haven’t I? I’m not cut out for this. I’m a dentist for heaven’s sake!” He was absolutely right in that observation. I could see it all, playing out on the web, and not in a good way.
“A dentist?”
“Paediatric orthodontist,” I stuttered out. “I fit kids with braces. Fix their teeth. Do surgeries once a week. That kind of thing.”
“You give people great smiles.” He grinned. “Not being flippant. I had my teeth fixed a few years ago. My mouth wasn’t great.”
“Looks good to me?”
“Seriously. Don’t flirt with me, Granddad. It’s not funny.”
“Don’t be ageist, kid.”
We both laughed. It felt good, like a small breath of relief after what had been a crazy day. Horrid. So many mistakes already. I shook my head in unease as he gifted me a small smile. The boy was sweet.
“I’m not doing myself any favours here.”
“Nope.” He smiled. “So, what on earth did you ask for that got you coupled up with me? I can’t quite see you asking for a washed-up twink?”
“Is that what you call yourself?”
“Thought you would have asked for a nice lady. Or some young bird. Midlife crisis and all that.”
He wasn’t being mean, just making conversation. So was I as I shook my head.
“Nah, I just asked for someone nice. Someone I could talk to. Who would need me and enjoy my company, just simple things. I didn’t ask for much. If I’d known what I know now?”
“Perhaps you should have been more specific.”
“Yes. I’ve kind of…realised that.”
“Instead you got all this mess. What a let-down.”
“You’re all right. What did you ask for?”
“Young, fit, rich and no kids.”
I had to laugh because even though it wasn’t funny? It kind of…was.
“I also asked for no grey hair. That part was non-negotiable.”
“Oh God, Oliver. No wonder you had a panic attack.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“Not mocking you. Just…getting to know you.”
“Well, what else do you want to know?”
“What do you do for a living…when you’re not passing out on reality shows?”
“You’re mocking me.”
I grimaced. He laughed. Such an easy laugh. I wish I was more like him. I told him that as well, which made him blush.
“I’m an account manager for a financial firm.”
“Very upmarket.”
“Not for long once this goes on TV.”
“You did tell them, though?”
Ah. Crap. The look on his face held a million lies.
Sophia Soames should be old enough to know better but has barely grown up. She has been known to fangirl over TV shows, has fallen in and out of love with more popstars than she dares to remember, and has a ridiculously high-flying (un-) glamourous real-life job.
Her long-suffering husband just laughs at her antics. Their children are feral. The dogs are too.
She lives in a creaky old house in rural London, although her heart is still in her native Scandinavia.
Discovering that the stories in her head make sense when written down has been part of the most hilarious midlife crisis ever, and she hopes it may long continue.
Author Links
https://linktr.ee/sophiasoames
