'Re-imagines a story of gay men in London 200 years ago and under the pain of their betrayal and injustice, he uncovers loyalty and above all, love’ SIR IAN MCKELLAN
‘An imaginative, layered, clever story’THE TIMES
London, 1809. By day, minister John Church preaches to a congregation of commonfolk in Southwark. By night, he is drawn to the secretive, alluring world of a molly house on Vere Street. There, ordinary men reinvent themselves as outrageous queens: lads on the make flirt with labourers and princes alike, and John finds himself ordaining marriages between men.
When he meets the unworldly and free-thinking Ned, one of a group of African abolitionists who attend his chapel, John falls in love with Ned's tender nature and discovers how quickly desire can turn to obsession.
Based on the true story of one of the most important events in queer history, RADICAL LOVE is a sensuous and prescient story about gender and sexuality, and how the most vulnerable survive in dangerous times.
‘One of the boldest novelistic explorations of desire I have read in some time’ KEIRAN GODDARD
‘Compellingly real’ DAILY MAIL
Publisher: Cornerstone
ISBN: 9781529158762
Number of pages: 288
Weight: 205 g
Dimensions: 197 x 129 x 18 mm
Neil Blackmore re-imagines an astounding story of gay men in London 200 years ago and under the pain of their betrayal and injustice, he uncovers loyalty and above all, love. I relished every page. - SIR IAN MCKELLEN
Blackmore has taken the historical facts and created an imaginative, layered, clever story that explores male desire in an intolerant time. With wit and aplomb he performed a similar trick in The Dangerous Kingdom of Love, riffing on the gay life of the polymath Francis Bacon. Radical Love confirms Blackmore as being one of the most original voices in historical fiction today. - ANTONIA SENIOR, The Times
I was staggered by this book; one of the boldest novelistic explorations of desire I have read in some time. Frighteningly prescient, it shines a light on the world-making possibilities of erotic transgression and the violence that so often comes in its wake. - KEIRAN GODDARD, author of Hourglass
Forget Bridgerton. Neil Blackmore's Radical Love give us the people of Regency England and its people as they really were; brutally intolerant, scarred by slavery, marred by oppression and social injustice. Don't look for heroes here - look for life as it's really lived, people as they really are. - ANNIE GARTHWAITE, author of Cecily
A celebration of the erotic lives of long-dead gay Londoners and a lament for past persecutions, Radical Love is a powerful story of desire flourishing amid danger. - NICK RENNISON, The Sunday Times
Radical Love is both a searing portrayal of love and obsession, and breathtaking in its depiction of the brutality and hypocrisy of prejudice, all told in sharp, beautiful prose. An unforgettable book. - ELIZABETH LEE, author of Cunning Women
Utterly compelling. So beautifully written, so many twists and turns and achingly sad moments where I gasped aloud. I haven't read a novel that's tugged at my heartstrings as much as this since John Boyne's The Heart's Invisible Furies. A must-read ... I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come. - JOHN MARRS
A page-turner - MARIANKA SWAIN, The Telegraph
Full of urgent questions about individual and collective freedoms, and the writing of history...Compellingly real. - Daily Mail
A tale of courage and survival, richly imagined and full of pitch-perfect period detail and sly wit. - The Bookseller
This is a fascinating portrait of a truly complex character, who I was at times drawn to, at other repulsed by, as the layers of truth and deception were revealed. John Church’s failings are somewhat his own, and also... More
Welcome, dearest reader, to London!
The year, 1809.
In a city that is tired and exhausted by many hard years of war and beset by soaring prices which are giving no indication of coming down any time soon, and tension...
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LGBTQ people have, very much like Black lives, been omitted from history and it has been fantastic to see an increase in visibility of both in the last few years. Neil has contributed to those stories in his past... More
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