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

e-book, 242 pages

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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

e-book, 213 pages

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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

e-book, 204 pages

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By Donald West

Published: 2012

Donald West, psychiatrist and criminologist, published a book arguing for tolerance at a time when gays in the UK were social pariahs and legally criminals.
Now, over fifty years later, he can write openly as a gay man describing his simultaneous pursuit of a secret, fraught love-life and a precarious professional career. In investigations of the paranormal, researches into the roots of delinquency, studies of sexual crime and of society’s response to sexual abuse, he advances some unpopular ideas.

Although influenced by his life among a sexual minority, he tries to reach his objective, evidence-based conclusions. His stories of forced secrecy and threatened exposure reflect difficulties of the past that have not completely disappeared in supposedly more enlightened times.

ISBN: 978 1 904585 23 7

Paperback, 227 pages

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By Joseph Hucknall

Published: 2013

A Life’s Tales is the story of a life lived in a vanished age, a life lived with compassion, insight, ambition and an adventurous spirit, a life fighting against discrimination against gays, and a constant search for self-improvement.

Starting in 1935, when the author was six, these intimate, sensitively written, and engrossing memoirs span 77 years of social change, ranging from the poverty of a northern industrial childhood, shared with eight siblings, through the war years, to an adolescent awakening of homosexuality. 

This was followed by conscription into the Army, progression through the Woolworth company until its meltdown and into a period of creativity and ongoing self-discovery.

Told with wry philosophic humour, the story is episodic and follows a revealing journey through family life and struggle, homosexual experiences and, the challenge of leading a double life to ‘coming out’ as a gay man and the eternal search for a loving relationship.

“A fascinating account of Joe Hucknall’s upbringing in working class Barrow, and his struggles as a gay man in post-war Britain. Very enjoyable and highly readable. It’s a pity Hucknall took so long to pursue his teenage ambition to become a writer.”
Michael Crick, Biographer & Political Correspondent Channel 4 News

“A revelation and a thoroughly enjoyable read.”
Mick Hucknall, Singer & Songwriter

ISBN: 978 1 904585 49 7

Paperback, 240 pages

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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

e-book, 304 pages

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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, 163 pages

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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

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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

e-book, 304 pages

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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

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Collectively edited

Published: 2011

Who did your mother warn you about? Friends who are not all they seem. Suspicious neighbours, or that black sheep relative? Dirty old men, or young men on the scrounge? Falling in with criminals and drunkards, or coming to the same bad end as your sister? Foreign tourists, or the clan in the next valley? Or just People Like That?

All these and more are present in this collection of stories by lesbian and gay writers. There are people who listened to their mothers, and some who should have done. There are tales of life today, and little pieces of our history. Will you dare to show it to your mother?

G Abel-Watters is also the editor of Queer Haunts.

ISBN: 978 1 904585 12 1

Paperback

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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, 94 pages

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Collectively edited

Published: 2003/2013

There were only a few dozen words on the page, and he soon came to the end of them. He didn’t want to turn the page, but he could feel himself being urged to do so. The struggle was sufficient to wake him; he was sweating, and still had a lingering sensation of dread.

Scary, friendly, vengeful, sexy many types of ghosts appear in this diverse volume of stories. There is a spirit far from home and one who doesn’t want to leave home; there are ghosts who do favours or expect favours from humans, ghosts who tell their own story, and a spirit who wears a green lace negligee.

In Queer Haunts you will find something for every mood, from chilling to charming, moving to amusing. Some of these tales link back to ancient legends and times gone by, others are firmly in the modern world where ghosts can jet in and carry a mobile phone.

The stories in this collection have all been written by gay and lesbian authors, and all speak in some way of gay experience. It reflects their diversity in its diverse collection, and the diversity of the readers to whom it will appeal. In fact, everyone who loves a good story or a good ghost. So wedge those rattling windows and creaking doors, curl up by the fire and enjoy.

“As is the case with all anthologies, the stories are of variable quality; the most effective being those that sensibly utilise the form by restricting locale and number of characters to a minimum. Jeffrey Doorn’s In the Catacombs and Journey Round the Circle Line, for instance.”
Peter Burton, Gay Times, December 2003

ISBN: 978 1 904585 58 9

Paperback, 198 pages

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By Elsa Wallace

Published: 2015

“We don’t mention the beech wood”, says Herman, but much else is mentioned in these three sets of stories about developments in gay lives. In Kissyface, Hein encompassed by sexuality asserts he is non-sexual, and Liesl reports to her school that she has two fathers and two mothers.

In On the Copperbelt Clare is drawn to nuns and Roland is obsessed with a dead German; if it had stopped at that, how happy his mother would have been.

In Music at the Buchanans, Janey loses a job through intimacy with an employer’s wife but finds a better, and the usually wordless Mr Marrant vows that his next kiss will be “Not like a savage or, worse, a Frenchman, but, slowly and gently, I will speak to him in my kissing.”

ISBN: 978-1-904585-73-2

Paperback, 203 pages

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By John Dixon

Published: 2013

Nine stories, varied topics, forms and lengths.

The Carrier Bag is a Bridport prize-winning story, of which Margaret Drabble said “A tale for our time, which satirically contrasts a wine bar squash playing set with a representative member of the underclass. A fine use of dialogue here, from a writer who has his ear to the ground.”

In Across the Corridor - and Down a Bit a knowing holiday diarist unfailingly gets it wrong. Little Gems is a mother’s monologue on her three daughters. The Untoward Invention is a political satire telling how an invention of potential use in waste disposal is seconded by the War Ministry.

In Coping a parent reacts to a marriage guidance counsellor’s trite recommendations. The Heights concerns a Christmas postman who is given a round no one else wants. Well our feeble frame tells of the Damascus Road incidents of a middle-aged woman on holiday in Jordan.

Consequences asks if apparent results are so easily traceable to assumed causes and is the erratic diary confessions of an employee losing control.

ISBN: 978 1 904585 40 4

Paperback, 200 pages

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By Elsa Wallace

Published: 2011

“Don’t look in the mirror at the Hesselmans”, said my aunt Sybil. “It’s an unlucky mirror. It’s the one the monkey looked in.”

Fourteen stories dealing with areas where human and animal lives meet, for good or ill, some set in Africa, some in UK.

ISBN: 978 1 904585 169

e-book, 144 pages

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By Michael Harth

Published: 2003

“You can’t blame Colin for that, mother”, Melvin interrupted. “I’m at my physical peak just now; surely you wouldn’t want me to waste it?”

His mother pointed out with dignity “There is such a thing as self-control.”

“But what would I be controlling it for?” Melvin asked.

“There are good things in A Little Chat which tend to feature men who are not particularly attractive, not especially active, but are overly obsessed with rough trade and cottaging. Most have a ‘road to Damascus’ experience when, for the first time, sex is really thrilling.”
Peter Burton, Gay Times, December 2003

ISBN: 978 1 904585 02 2

Paperback, 166 pages

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By Ian Stewart

Published: 2002

Ajax is back home on the dawn-flooded doorstep. Glare rising sun and crisp golden glow radiating the frightening, unpredictable barrage of whooshing lorries and traffic. 

All of a sudden, it’s that man dimly-remembered out of some forgotten morning’s swirl of the ordinary, a bearded face seen but once on an early bus.

Ajax blunts a noble tradition, stoner Jeff spots flaws in the mad professor’s scheme, Sharon lives her Art and a sickly lad wanks himself to immunity in these cinematic, themed stories, deftly reckoned by a fellow who’s well been around.

“Ian Stewart‘s Cocksuckery is far more thoughtful than its title might suggest. His writing is unusual with surreal twists and an introversion that is both intimate and seductive.”
Gay Times

ISBN: 978 0 9525964 4 8
e-book, 188 pages

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By Martin Foreman

Published: 1994

I lay in bed, alternately pushing the covers away and pulling them over me, sure he was in the room sitting in the armchair by the door as he sat every day on the beach. .

I saw his hat, a homburg as neatly creased as his jacket and trousers, his moustache, thick, black and grey, stretching over his lips and onto his cheeks like my father’s, and, half-shaded, his eyes, dark, clear, strong, lying below brows that curled into a frown.

It was not so much his face I saw as the face of all men, the face of my father when I had done something wrong.

This collection of fifteen short stories displays a counterpoint of different voices, each with a ring of authenticity. Some reflect the shifting kaleidoscope of gay reality in 1990s Britain: the sexual compulsion of Room With No View, the high-energy rhythm of Discotheque, or the cynical manipulation of Simon’s Dinner Party.

Others take us to wider horizons. To Brazil and off into landscapes of allegory and myth. Finally, in the masterful title story, we hear the voice of Thomas Mann’s silent Tadzio as he relates his encounter in Venice with the writer Aschenbach.

“Accomplished, literate, dignified, deeply felt.”
Times Literary Supplement, London

“As delicate and haunting a piece of prose as I’ve read all year”
Him (now Gay Times)

“Martin Foreman has an uncomfortable, probably accurate view of the human condition. An excellent book.”
IQ

ISBN: 978 0 85449 185 8

Paperback, 186 pages

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By Michael Harth & edited by John Dixon and Jeffrey Doorn

Published: 2021

Michael Harth (1926-2016) was a prolific writer in several genres, songs, revues, a full-length novel, an appreciation of pianist/composer Billy Mayerl, even a science fiction musical as well as three volumes of short stories.

His lyrics are clever, quirky, often satirical. This book presents 36 of his previously unpublished song lyrics. A companion collection of short stories was published in 2019.

ISBN 978-1-904585-91-6

Paperback, 84 pages

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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, 80 pages

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