Novels
Olympia Heights
By Leigh V Twersky
Olympia Heights is set in a future corporate world, where only money and celebrity count, C-class people dread disemployment and D-classification, and homo 'niceboys' get metamorphosed into 'sphecos', a hybrid wasp-man auxiliary police force with crime-busting assets.
It is the story of one spheco's quest for identity, lost family and proscribed love and also the tale of a woman's struggle to survive on the outlawed fringes of a society, where the revelation of a dark secret threatens to tear her life apart.
Homophobia and genetic cleansing. Pre-mortem funerals and putting the 'quality' into equality.
Welcome to BestcoeBritain.
ISBN: 978-1-904585-95-4
Paperback, 432 pp, £9.99
Pharmakeia
By Timothy Graves
Published: 2016
When Mahvand Amirzadeh, a young gay comics artist, encounters Belial (aka Jean-Baptiste Lebeau-Chevalier) at a literary soiree in the East End, his artistic journey takes an unexpected turn.
Mahvand is lured into the dark underbelly of London’s conceptual art scene and enters into a Faustian-like pact with Jean-Baptiste. But what is Jean-Baptiste’s true nature? And how far will Mahvand go in his quest to become a celebrity artist?
Pharmakeia is a darkly disturbing tale interwoven with humour and light from Candy Darling, the Geordie transsexual who works below Mahvand in the basement sex shop, to Gracie, Mahvand’s cockney-rhyming, Tarot-reading Gran.
ISBN: 978-1-904585-84-8
Paperback, £9.99
Consequences
By Elizabeth J Lister
Published: 2015
In this fifth and last book in Elizabeth J Lister’s series of lesbian romances, the characters are caught up in the destructive consequences of homophobia. Can relationships survive its devastating effects?
Elizabeth J Lister aims to present in a positive light the everyday thoughts and actions of homosexual men and women as they relate to their families, people within the workplace and society, and particularly when they fall in love.
ISBN: 978-1-904585-76-3
Paperback, 242 pages, £6.99
The Bexhill Missile Crisis
By David Gee
‘If only, Evelyn would think later, if only there hadn’t been the bother in Cuba; if only she hadn’t knocked the Horseman of the Apocalypse off his motorbike, the week might have turned out very differently. ’
October, 1962. The world goes to the brink. Not only in Cuba.
As US warships set sail to establish President Kennedy’s Cuban ‘blockade’, Londoners Andrew and Evelyn motor down to the Sussex coast. At a country crossroads their car collides with a motorcycle ridden by the sinister Pilgrim.
While Kennedy and Krushchev nudge the world towards a nuclear precipice, Pilgrim drives these middle-class misfits to a brink of their own. Their cosy Terence Rattigan lives get a Joe Orton makeover in this dark comedy-of-manners with a gothic twist.
"Sexual intercourse began in 1962," says David Gee. "Philip Larkin was out by one year. Anyone who was alive at the time of the Cuban Crisis will remember the feeling that with the world on the brink of thermonuclear extinction, there might only be time for one last fling. The four people in The Bexhill Missile Crisis don’t choose the wrong partner for this fateful fling; he chooses them".
Twenty-Two Eighty-Four
By Christopher Preston
Published: 2014
In 2284 utopia or dystopia? That depends on your gender and sexuality. Climate change and a fertility virus have transformed the world and women are now in charge.
Pitto Kucera, the only son of a wealthy and powerful family of women, turns nineteen and begins his life as a sex worker. Can he avoid the law and succeed in finding his father and a new way of living?
ISBN: 978 1 904585 62 6
Paperback, 304 pages, £7.99
Tracy Manners
By Elizabeth Lister
Published: 2013
At the age of 24, Tracy Manners is arrested for attacking her girlfriend.
It is the first time, a matter of lost tempers, but it is likely to mar the rest of her life and mark her as a criminal in both her social life and employment.
Entering jail as an angry, sexually-charged young woman, it is Tracy’s years behind bars and the time after her release, plus years of kindness and hard work, sexual abuse, unexpected friendships and ultimately, love, that help her to grow into a person worthy of respect.
ISBN: 978 184963 742 8
Paperback, 213 pages, £6.99
Guru on Hire
By Michael Harth
Published: 2013
Scott works as a male escort in London, but is dissatisfied with his life. A new client, Gordon, proves to act as Guru to a number of disciples, and he agrees to help Scott sort himself out.
Some months later, Scott accompanies him to a Greek island where Edwin, the son of a wealthy businessman, is paying Gordon to hold a series of seminars, but some inexplicable happenings bring these to a premature close.
On their return to England, Scott finds Gordon disturbingly different, and when Edwin starts to promote him as a public figure with a message for the world at large, he tries to interfere. This proves more dangerous than he had anticipated.
ISBN: 978 1 904585 65 7
e-book only, £2.99
The Dropout
By David Gee
Published: 2012
Don’t fall for Paul. He’ll drive you to the edge.
19-year-old Paul Barrett is having a tough time at university. His American girlfriend Meredith is a Silver Ring virgin who won’t put out. Their best friend Neil has a worrying crush on Paul.
Meredith dumps Paul and Neil commits suicide, Paul drops out of uni and retreats to his hometown on the south coast. He goes to work for his uncle Jack, selling leather furniture to continental buyers.
Two more women enter Paul’s life: Jenny, his uncle’s foxy stepdaughter; and Christine, Jack’s gold-digging mistress, the office receptionist. And Paul attracts another gay admirer. His life is heading to the brink, and taking other lives with him.
The Dropout offers a sly, edgy new twist on themes from The Graduate and American Pie.
"David Gee’s tongue-in-cheek, if dark, social and sexual satire (a sort of cross between David Lodge and Tom Sharpe) leads us through a topsy-turvy world of sexual shenanigans and unconventional relationships conducted behind the outwardly respectable façade of small town life, a façade which the return of the prodigal son, Paul, cracks wide open, to reveal the unsavoury secrets lurking behind it.
This is a highly-absorbing, entertaining and ultimately satisfying read, and one which I would unhesitatingly recommend."
Tim Bennett-Goodman, Polari Magazine
ISBN: 978 1 78088 309 0
Paperback, 310 pages, £7.99
Bokassa’s Last Apostle
By Rod Shelton
Published: 2012
There must be a small fortune in here, he thought as he stared at the contents of the bank box. Why didn’t I know about this? Hundred dollar bills too; still legal tender. He bent over. Who said money doesn’t smell good? Nice choice matey boy, whoever you are. Pity you didn’t come back. He rummaged around a bit and his hands came across a lumpy envelope. ‘Everton?’ he read. ‘Who the hell is he?’
Shortlisted for ‘gay mystery’ category in the Lambda Literary Awards 2013.
In this pacy and funny thriller, we follow the fortunes of Everton Jones, a mixed race gay boy from Dudley, as an inheritance left hidden in a bank vault by the Central African father he never knew leads him into a race against time to find out how his father stole Emperor Bokassa’s diamonds and, more importantly, where he hid them before Bokassa’s remaining followers, his ‘Apostles’, get there first.
ISBN: 978 1 904585 41 1
Paperback, 304 pages, £10.99
My Life Outside
By Elizabeth Lister
Published: 2012
In My Life Outside, the second book in Elizabeth Lister’s trilogy, spirited, sexy ex-prisoner Helen Burns determines to make a career and home for herself. She resumes the life of work and study that was interrupted by the accidental death of a friend, for which she was held responsible.
Will this lovable character have the courage to recover from setbacks, re-gain her confidence and find fulfilling love? Homophobic parents and neighbours and a manipulative lover are of no help. Her sex life leads to an unforeseen conclusion.
ISBN: 978 1 904585 37 4
Paperback, 197 pages, £7.99
Nothing Stays the Same
By Elizabeth Lister
Published: 2012
Dee Livesey’s long term relationship is challenged by the increasingly unsettled situation between herself and her now retired partner, Jane Pennyfields. Her friends Helen and Annabel return from Paris to live in England. Difficult times are ahead for all four friends.
In this third story of her trilogy, Elizabeth Lister presents issues that are not just the substance of heroines and fiction but problems that have to be tackled by women in all walks of life.
ISBN: 978 1 904585 48 8
Paperback, 224 pages, £7.99
Prisoner 537
By Elizabeth Lister
Published: 2012
Eight o’clock in the evening an old woman is seen lying on the front lawn of the Livesey residence. The bedroom window above is open.
Dee Livesey, unhappily married mother with two young daughters, is suspected of having pushed her mother-in-law to her death and she’s remanded in custody.
Her unexpected adventures start when she meets her fellow prisoners; women who are not heterosexual. Elizabeth Lister is distanced by age from those of her experiences which she fictionalises in this, her first novel.
ISBN: 978 1 904585 24 4
Paperback, 184 pages, £7.99
Behind the Mask
By Winston Green
Published: 2011
A semi-fictional no-holds-barred account of an affair between a British-Caribbean and an African man, charting the gradual decline in the relationship as differences in outlook and sexual mores come to the fore.
They met at a sex party. It was meant to be sex, no strings, just an arrangement of mutual convenience. Neither of them planned on a relationship: however something changed the dynamics.
Both realised they wanted more from each other but were afraid to admit the rules had now changed. Can they make the transition from sex-buddies to having a relationship? This book by a new young black writer charts with brutal honesty the ups and downs of a relationship hidden by a mask of emotions.
ISBN: 978 1 904585 17 6
Paperback, £3.99
Homo Jihad
By Timothy Graves
Published: 2010
David Underwood, a hopeless romantic and regular on the drug-fuelled gay scene in London, meets Yossi, an Israeli Jew, at a nightclub. A long distance relationship develops and David begins to uncover the truth behind Yossi’s tragic past.
But what will happen when David’s ex, Ahmed, who is under intense family pressure to marry, makes a sudden reappearance? And how does the terrorist atrocity of 7/7 mark a turning point for the lovers? Will David find a way to be with Ahmed or will he start a new life in Israel with Yossi?
“This has to be one of the most ambitious novels ever written, dealing with everything from illicit Muslim homosexuality and hate crime to GHB abuse and international terrorism. Graves is a writer to watch.”
Attitude
“Homo Jihad is an impressive debut from an exciting new voice in gay fiction.”
Time Out
“Homo Jihad is a high-octane account of a gay love affair set in a world of chemical highs.”
Paul Burston, author of The Gay Divorcee
“Homo Jihad is a compelling gay love story which, in many ways, captures the zeitgeist of our times. Powerful stuff! A real page turner.”
Amjeed Kabil, author of Straightening Ali
ISBN: 978 1 904585 15 2
Paperback, £8.99
Rid England of This Plague
By Rex Batten
Published: 2006
In the early 1950s the Home Secretary, Sir Daved Maxwell Fyffe, claimed he would 'Rid England of this Plague' - the plague of homosexuality.
Paradoxically, it was the reaction to the zeal with which the Establishment carried out the Home Secretary's behest that resulted in the setting up of the Wolfenden Committee when the first steps were taken to rid England of the plague of Homophobia.
That period is the setting for Rex Batten's novel. “I wrote it as fiction, to give me more scope, and a wider perspective, in creating the atmosphere and feeling of that era.”
Despite its fictional form, it has been widely used as a textbook example of the climate of fear and its consequences in the 1950s.
ISBN 978 1 904585 08 4
320 pages. Available on Amazon
A Short History of Lord Hyaena
By Elsa Wallace
Published: 2001/2015
I cannot remember when I did not know I was different. Even this old part of the palace was richly endowed with sculptures, pictures and tapestries, some of which presented naked figures of women and girls to show me my difference.
And then I knew it had always been the case that while Lumika and Aigret undressed freely before me, my clothes were always changed beneath a shift and I was even bathed in this shift.
When I once queried the inconvenience of the arrangement Lumika said roughly, “You know why. Are you like that statue there? No. You are of a different kind that may not be seen.”
The first part of the history is told by Lord Hyaena’s resourceful and audacious successor. The second is Lord Hyaena’s own account of his love for and loss of his ally, a lord from Orinna.
“Short and strange, this hypnotic novella is engrossing, wild and curiously beautiful.”
Gay Times
ISBN: 978 0 9525964 2 4
e-book only, £1.99
Weekend
By Martin Foreman
Published: 1990
The attraction of sunshine, warmth and clear skies on a day when he did not have to teach, was weaker than that of sleep.
He turned onto his side, withdrew his head beneath the covers and hugged the pillow as he would have hugged Robert, as he had hugged Carl and Gene and others before them.
The action was as momentarily satisfactory as a reflex, but the pillow’s softness, its smallness, its lack of smell and resistance, soon irritated and he pushed it away.
Martin Foreman‘s first novel charts the course of two days in the life of a gay man in his twenties who is facing a crisis in his current relationship. Interwoven with the tensions between Mark and Robert are Mark’s memories of two previous lovers; Gene, an introverted and self-sufficient painter who lives in Paris, and Carl, a barman whose demands as a lover become almost too much for Mark to bear.
“Absorbing first novel”
Gay Times
ISBN: 978 1 870188 15 9
Published by Third House and distributed by Paradise Press.
Paperback, 172 pages, £5.50