Showing results by author "Anthony McDonald" in All Categories

The tragic-comic story of two young men, aged 21 and 18, who fall in love in the summer of 1962, but who have the misfortune to be working as teachers in a Catholic preparatory school at the time. Their names are Tom and Christopher. In the opposite corner to them stands Father Louis, the elderly headmaster. It is his conviction that the sixties will go down in history as the decade which sees the earthly triumph of the Catholic Church. Life becomes more complicated for Tom and Christopher when Miss O'Deere, the art mistress, decides to paint the pair as David and Jonathan and to enter the result in a public exhibition. To say nothing of the inconvenient attentions paid to them by 13-year-old Angelo Dexter.

They lived happily ever after - the last line of every fairy tale, every romance. But how happily can you live? How long can "ever after" last? This third and final audiobook in the Dog in the Chapel series finds Tom and Christopher still together during the middle section of their lives: a very ordinary couple living in France. But there are challenges aplenty to face: disaster aboard a big ship; the tiniest of enemies, the AIDS virus. The struggle to make a living renovating Dordogne cottages; the task of making relationships work.

From gilded youth to 30-something. Young gay couple Tom and Christopher are steering through the minefield of changes in social and sexual mores of the 1960s and ’70s. Experimentation is the keynote of the age and Tom and Christopher dive in with a will as they move in and out of relationships and jobs in Britain and France, Channel-hopping, and bed-hopping through the years.

David, 28 and already divorced, is taken on holiday to Provence by his gay best mate. The idea is to recreate the journey Vincent Van Gogh made a century earlier, from cold dark northern Europe to the sunnier south. But in Arles, the town where Van Gogh settled, David sees a nude photo of the boy whose friendship with him brought about his divorce. Deeply buried memories surface.

The loveliest person ever sits next to you on the plane. But he’s in the wrong seat. You lose him, only to find him again, then lose him in the crowd... This is the story of English Daniel, 23, and French Daniel, 22, on holiday separately, then together, in Majorca – or on Mallorca. Of their complex love tri-tangle with 18-year-old Dunk and their discovery in the end that only Daniel will do. Of how their holiday romance grows into something stronger, and how their holiday island becomes their home. This book contains a few frankly described scenes of gay sex.

Seville, late '70s. This first book in Anthony McDonald’s Seville Trilogy follows the intertwined relationships of six young people - a potent mix of nationalities and sexualities - as they embark on adult life. Richly imbued with the sights, scents, and sounds of Southern Spain, this haunting, deeply felt novel explores the sharp sweetness of youthful love, the bitterness of betrayal, and its aftermath.

When Oliver loses his job and his lover in the space of a few months he feels, aged 38, that the best of his life is behind him. Unexpectedly, his life is transformed when he encounters an extraordinarily beautiful redhead on a train just minutes before a stranger offers him cash to courier a mysterious package out of the country.

At 22, Adam Wheeler learns that he has come into property, a mill house and vineyard in southern France. Leaving old friends behind, Adam moves across the Channel. His new life is a lonely one, until new neighbour Stéphane turns out to be offering more than just a helping hand with his vines. But when the love of Adam’s teen years, Sylvain, appears on the scene, Adam must decide exactly what, and who, he really wants.

A chance encounter on a country bus. A brush of thigh against thigh and a sideways, then a downward, glance. Nineteen-year-olds Tom and Mick could hardly have guessed the epic nature of the journey they were setting out on. A journey that would take them into business partnership together. A journey that would bring them little by little to the deepest reaches of the human heart. An adventure that would catapult them into the sweet and sometimes painful mysteries of life and sex and love.

A glimpse of eight-year-old Ivor in a pretty market town inspires young artist Gemma Palmer to write and illustrate a children’s book. Gemma next meets Ivor when she is 29 and he 16. They become lovers, to the consternation of Gemma’s friends…for the real Ivor is quite different from the sunny character she turned him into in her much-loved books. Lurking in the secret places of his heart are impulses that are dangerous and malign. It can only be a matter of time before they are released, ready to strike. But when? Where? At whom?

Jason and Barnaby are brothers. Each is highly successful in his chosen career - Barnaby as a presenter of TV nature programs and Jason in the field of medicine. But they share a dark and uncomfortable secret that neither dares divulge. So when Barnaby decides to write an account of their relationship during their childhood and teenage years the results are explosive and far-reaching. The story begins some 40 years ago, with a lightning flash on a summer night....

Adam, in his early 20s, has to balance the need to develop his career as a pro musician with the demands of home life - he runs a vineyard in France - and partner Sylvain. The arrival in his life of Josh - they meet on a concert tour - adds extra pressure. Though Sylvain, left at home to manage the vineyard, has his own ideas for self-advancement. This third and final volume in the Adam trilogy stands alone also: A self-contained story of life, partnership, and, inevitably, music.

Adam is a delightful 16-year-old who does well in school and spends his spare time practicing the cello. Or that's what his parents think. But there is another side to him, as farmer's son Sylvain discovers when he meets Adam alone in the middle of a wood.... The results of this chance encounter are explosive in this classic, passionate story of illicit romance and teenage sex during one long, hot summer in the French countryside.

Following a near-collision over Morocco, grounded airline pilot Borja exchanges his uniform for the black garb of a stagehand at the theatre where his partner, James, works as manager. Here, he finds drama, off-stage as well as on, to match anything he has encountered in the air - drama which can only heighten when young stage-hand Nick - suddenly homeless - comes to live with the two men.

Five friends who first met in Seville when in their twenties are reunited thirty years later in the same city to honor the memory of the sixth member of their set, who has died in the aftermath of a plane crash. But it’s not the arrival in life-affirming Seville that is the main thing - it’s the journey of life that brings them back there. Woodcock Flight deals with mid-life loss - be it of a partner, a job, a career or religious faith - in a spirit of humor, fortitude and optimism: It's an up-beat book.

On the surface, Rich is like any other young man looking for work and pleasure in mid-1970s London. But Rich is different. He is a dropout: a dropout from music college who has dropped out again after four years as a Catholic monk. Talented but not ambitious, personable but unattached, Rich finds himself drawn into an international world of wealth and sophistication that will direct the course of his life.

Two 18-year-old boys find themselves sharing a room when they arrive at Oxford. Life draws them together at whirlwind speed as they find themselves playing opposite each other in a student production of Hamlet and, after a few false starts, playing together in bed. Love has many lessons to teach them as they grapple with their emerging sexuality, deal with the machinations of others, and dare to look at the face of lasting happiness.

Twenty-one-year-old Henry is hired by the wealthy Luccini family to tutor their younger son Sandro in English. On the shores of Lake Garda he joins a world he has only dreamed of before now - a world of yachts, grand opera, and fast cars, and the world of the beautiful Luccini brothers, Michele and Sandro. As he learns to sail with them on the blue waters of the lake, he falls in love with both of them. Yet can he even have one?

Twenty-seven-year-old Peter has taken himself to Paris, after splitting up with his girlfriend, to find new love - and write. The last thing he’s looking for is handsome blond Fabrice, who also identifies as straight. But a love they can’t at first acknowledge blooms between them. Only an enforced separation obliges them to face the truth. But where better to discover the intricacies of love and yourself than in the world’s most romantic capital? The city of Paris, its inhabitants, and its street life are all integral characters in this book.

When the world went into lockdown in early 2020 novelist Anthony McDonald found himself separated from his Spanish partner by 2,000 miles of sea. This is the story, told in real time, of how he made his way to Tenerife on the day lockdown began there, and of the months that followed. A highly personal view of the Canary Islands, including accounts of time spent on other islands of this beautiful archipelago.