August 10, 2022 late afternoon. As those of you who read my main page know, THE BOY IN THE RAIN will be published June 1 2023 by Regal House Publishing. I am now proofing my first pass galleys (first typeset version). As I read through the pages yet again, I am filled with a great deal of emotion -- thanks mostly for the more than fifty people who read one of the so many drafts over the years, each adding something to the book or simply loving it, which meant everything to me.
THE BOY IN THE RAIN had a particular journey. Bits of it were written and revised over many years between other published novels. I had always hoped to publish it but my novels of famous artists were not difficult to market. Larger publishers who wanted my work were a little wary of a story about two Edwardian men in love (an artist and a socialist), their personal difficulties, their work to help the staving poor and their close calls with English law which imprisoned gay men brutally for two years, destroying their health and sometimes their lives.
Finally a friend suggested I send the book to the small literary publisher Regal House Press, which is "passionately dedicated to the furtherance of exquisitely written literary works and to the writers who pen them." Their editor Jaynie Royal loved the novel and contracted for it. And Regal House has won an important award from Foreward Reviews for being the best small publisher of the year. So I feel I am in regal company indeed.
If you wish to hear more of this book's marvelous journey and be notified of readings etc., please contact me on the main page tab with your e-mail.