Stories

To read a particular story, click either "Completed" or "In Series"

Peacher Stories

Towards the Decent Inn

Northampton student, Matt White, an adonis unawares, meets and falls for loner, Andy Peacher. Their idyll lasts for just a few months before it is blown out of the water, for Andy has kept the most important thing about himself a secret from Matt. And now Matt has to save his lover from a remorseless foe. Complete...

Terry and the Peachers

Terry O'Brien, fit and unapologetically gay, falls into the world of the Peacher family, and makes a brutal enemy, who is out to pursue him to the death. Complete...

The Heart of Oskar Prinz

The first of the Rothenian tales. Will Vincent, schoolteacher, exits the closet and finds it leads him to very strange places, for on his first expedition into the world of gay romance he encounters the beautiful Oskar, cynic and Rothenian porn star, who is not at all what he seems. Complete...

The Chav Prince

Nathan Underwood is an upper middle class boy who loves gardening, it's his life's work, but in the flower beds of Matt and Andy's Highgate home, he encounters Justin Macavoy, street kid and petty criminal on day release. The shock of it means that neither boy will be the same ever again. Complete...

Henry in the Outfield

The first of three linked tales. Vicar's son, Henry Robert Atwood, has been landed in a public school in Shropshire and hates every moment of it, especially compulsory sports. But he attracts the attention of two boys, who between them will change his life for ever. One, Ed Cornish, is every gay boy's dream. The other - another vicar's son, Jehoiadah, handsome, seductive and, unfortunately, dead - is every boy's nightmare. Complete...

Henry in High Politics

Henry Atwood is still in the sixth form of Medwardine school. He is intrigued by new arrival, Rudi Burlesdon, red-headed, sullen and violent. Henry likes to help, but once again gets way out of his depth, for in Rothenia a new spirit is rising and Rudi is not what he appears to be. Complete...

Henry in Finkle Road

And now Henry has made it to university, but without Ed. Instead he finds himself in a first-year house share with Eddie Peacher, Andy's problem brother, and the nervous Gavin. Between them, they find themselves combating a mystery of the ages, and unearth a secret to discover which is death. Complete...

Son of the Chav Prince

Justin Peacher-White has it all, a partner, lifestyle and job to die for. But as a street kid he put it about a bit, and now finds he has a small son. Justin determines on finding the boy, and is far more successful than he and Nathan are quite ready to cope with. For Damien Macavoy is no ordinary child. Complete...

After Alex

Ben Craven's break-up with Alex is a depth charge in the quiet pond of his life. When the debris settles, he finds himself with a new boyfriend, a new career and facing the challenge of a lifetime. Complete...

The Green Side

The Peacher empire needs Justin and he rises to the challenge. But it means moving job, partner and child to the Rothenian capital, Strelzen. It goes off better than he has a right to expect, but what he doesn't realise is that an implacable enemy is on his trail, and the very existence of Rothenia is in the balance. Fortunately he has unlikely allies in the shape of two unconventional monks, two dead boys and a fifteenth-century countess. Complete...

Henry and the Eschaton

Henry Atwood meets the greatest adventure of his life, for the End-Time is come. Dark forces are stirring: bigotry and hatred posing as evangelical Christianity and moral certainty. But Enoch and Elijah rise to stand by his side, and the Great Council decides that Henry is the stuff heroes are made of. Complete...

Blue Rainbow

Gavin is back in the business of being human, and he has his lover, Max Jamroziak, to help. But can he overcome the incompetence of his bottom-feeding university, the oddballs who are his fellow-students, and the mystery of an exchange student's tattoo? Complete...

Henry and the Balance of Probability

Henry is back at the Eastnet newsdesk and life is good. His son, Lance, is a delight and Ed's career is in overdrive. But things are not all they seem, and a sudden violent death leads to some questions difficult to resolve, and the easiest of them is who it was whodunnit. Complete...

The Regency

Barry Hignett arrives in Year 12 of the Strelzen International School, and discovers language is the very least of his problems.  He finds romance and extreme danger, caught up in a web of deceit and cosmic conspiracy focussed on the beautiful and mysterious figure of the sixteen-year-old Lance Atwood. Complete...

The Fall

Lance Atwood is a family kind of guy, but even he comes to think that you can have too much of a good thing, as his close relatives unexpectedly turn up in Strelzen and Henry and Ed have to come to terms with a whole new dimension of fatherhood. And as if that weren't enough, the schemes of Tobias and the rise of the Black Horde from the East threaten the very existence of humanity. For, as Mike Atwood puts it, Armaggedon is come. Complete...

Crown of Tassilo Stories

Count Oskar

It is the year 1880, and Flavia, queen of Ruritania, is dying. Her kingdom lies on the faultline of Europe, and how can it be preserved from the German princes who are her heirs apparent? The answer lies in a family secret and a desperate political gamble which sucks in the young earl of Burlesdon and his friend, Augustus Underwood. But they have help in the enigmatic figure of Oskar von Tarlenheim, beautiful, seductive and dangerous. As armies mass, and statesmen gather, Gus pursues love and adventure across Europe. Complete...

Maxim Elphberg

It is 1910, and Maxim Stefan Rassendyll seeks to serve his king in the murky world of the intelligence service in Central Europe. But there is a greater game afoot, and as Europe stumbles towards war, Maxim finds himself called to higher and greater things, for there are those who would have him dead, and others who would place the Crown of Tassilo on his head. Complete...

The Unnatural Archaeologist

Martin Tofts enters public school in the aftermath of a world war which has deprived him of a father. He makes two unlikely friends there in Leo and Pip, the Kraut Twins. As they grow to manhood he learns about love and life from Leo. And together they seeks to penetrate to the heart of the mystery of the hidden Crown of Tassilo, for they know it is in danger, and only they can save it. Complete...

Other Stories

Terre Nouvelle

Ruprecht von Aalst, noble dilettante, diplomat and scholar, blunders into a political minefield: but is it an accident or someone else's design? More and more he comes to believe he's a prisoner of the past he studies, and that forces from his world's own lost history are breaking through into the present to steer it into a new future, but for who's benefit? Complete...

About Me

I like stories which mingle history, humour, romance and a touch (sometimes more than a touch) of the supernatural. Gay men necessarily live on the margins of society, even though less so now than they once did. So they fit well in tales of the liminal and into the dark spaces between worlds, as I found when I finally began writing fiction a few years ago. The playground where most of my stories are set is in the non-existent realm imagined by Anthony Hope (1863-1933), which he called Ruritania. All three of his Ruritanian stories captivated me as a child, and the series of tales featured here are set in a Ruritania as I imagine it lived and grew after the end of his Rupert of Hentzau.

The Crown of Tassilo historical series takes the story of the Rassendyll-Elphberg family through revolutions and war up to the present day, when Ruritania is an EU accession state going now under the name of Rothenia.

The Peacher series plays itself out in modern-day America, Britain and Rothenia, and is set around a series of characters linked together by their relationships with the Anglo-American Peacher dynasty. Each story stands alone, but it is a good idea to take them in sequence. Some or all of the stories previously appeared on the Nifty and Iomfats sites. But they're all published on CRV first!