ENDORSEMENTS

Jeanette Winterson

“Another triumph!”

 

Peter Tatchell

“A rollicking tale of corruption, intrigue and romance.”

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Matthew Parris

“By turns incisive, outlandish and hilarious! … there's a brilliance in The Gay Street Chronicles, half-modern, half-Dickensian.”

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THE AUTHOR

William “Bill” Keeling is a former foreign correspondent for the Financial Times and exposed a multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal in Nigeria.

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He eventually left journalism for chocolate, becoming co-owner of the historic chocolate company Prestat, but is still plotting his return to the true home of jollof rice.

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William lives and writes in Somerset. Belle Nash and the Bath Soufflé is the first in what will be a five-part series. 

SUMMARY

In Volume 2 of The Gay Street Chronicles, gay hero Bellerophon (Belle) Nash returns to Regency Bath after a four-year exile in Grenada. It's 1835.

 

Belle meets Pablo Fanque, which sets him off on an ill-advised course of action that brings him to a low ebb. Hoping that Pablo Fanque will serve as a substitute for the man he left behind in the Caribbean, Belle agrees to help him achieve his ambitions as England's first black circus entrepreneur.

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His plans run into trouble with the arrival in Bath of Lord Servitude, the most unapologetic slave owners in the West Indies, and with Pablo's refusal to be something that he isn't.

 

The ensuring contests between good and bad, and compromise and principle, play out alongside a cast of eccentric characters, many of them portrayed with whimsical humour, in whose company Belle builds the moral courage to challenge the racism of his day while brought down by the awareness of his betrayal of himself. 

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