Set in the autumn of 1989 in New York City, the story of a disillusioned blue-collar worker and dedicated barfly, Pete Manson, and his disintegrating marriage to his beautiful and more aspirational wife, Kate. Sharing an inadequate apartment together, Manson spends his time cruising bars and parks and avoiding work as best he can. His regular drinking haunt is Frank's Bar, where he hangs out with affable barman, Mike, and fellow barfly and drifter, fading beauty, Mary. On his travels he en...

Paris in the 1990s. Writer's Block is the story of Henri, a womanising, gambling, hard-drinking, drug-taking, struggling writer, with high literary aspirations. His failure to complete the novel he's working on and make the big time leads him into a spiralling decline of addictions, putting both his relationship to partner, Monique, and his health at risk. It is the story of Henri's bohemian friends, Louis, Jean, Maurice, Michelle, Rosalie and Dominique, a group with artistic ambitions who...

Aslightly raunchier sequel to 21 Days In Swansea. It picks up the story a few months later, with retired investment banker, Edward Chapman, now running a second-hand bookshop with new partner, Jill, having left his old life and unfaithful estranged wife, Alice, behind in Oxford, with no plans to return. A chance visit to Neath one afternoon persuades him to open a second bookshop and coffee shop there but his Alice turns up unexpectedly, intent on staying 21 days in a bid to win h...

Simon is a would-be writer and a serial monogamist, with a habit of self-sabotage. He loves women but has a habit of messing up his relationships with them, despite his best efforts and starting each new relationship with optimism and genuine conviction it will last this time.'Four Women' charts Simon's life with consecutive girlfriends, one after another, over a twenty-year period. Through a mixture of his own inadequacies and hang ups as well as theirs, things go wrong, until he e...

The Wind Changes Direction combines the poems of the 2007 full collection of the same name and the 2009 full collection Celebrations of Life by Exeter poet and novelistAndy Botterill in one poetry book. The poems are in a confessional style and in the vein of the American Beat tradition. They explore themes of reflection, relationships, family and friendships, the passing of time, parenthood, sport, transport, work, the ageing process, routines, the seasons, cont...

At Heart A Romantic combines the poems of the 2004 pamphlet An Essentially English Voice, the 2005 full collection The History of Civilisation and the 2006 pamphlet At Heart A Romantic by Exeter poet and novelistAndy Botterill in one volume. The poems are in a confessional style and in the vein of the American Beat tradition. They explore themes of reflection, relationships, emotional and spiritual stagnation, lost love, breakup, lifestyle, pare...

Edward Chapman is a recently retired London financier, living near Oxford. He takes an unplanned holiday to South Wales, after discovering his younger, glamorous wife is having an affair with a work colleague. For Edward it's both a means of escape and an opportunity to spend time in the city of his former university, Swansea, where he met his first wife, Angela. During his stay, as he confronts the ghosts of his past and present, Edward slowly comes to terms with the fact he's been living...

The late 1990s in a provincial town in Greater London. Two very different characters, one male, one female, with one thing in common, dissatisfaction with their everyday lives and solace and escape in a private world of fantasies and daydreams. Martin is nerdy, obsessed with sports trivia, struggling to fit in at his workplace, where he is bullied. Jacqui an unmarried mum suffering at the hands of an abusive partner. The novel charts their respective progress through failed attempts at rel...

Miscellaneous Thoughts combines the poems of the 2001 full collection of the same name and the 2002 pamphlet A Different Game by Exeter poet and novelistAndy Botterill. The poems explore themes of reflection, lost love, childhood, marriage breakup, lifestyle, sport, growing up and growing old, with an increasing emphasis on use of language as well as conveying a story or message in words. Many appeared in their original format in the small press magazines of both the UK a...

The Rat Race is the 1980s creation of Margaret Thatcher's Britain. Paul, who has just graduated and wants to be a writer, faces overwhelming pressure to 'get on' and join the Rat Race, in sharp contrast to the alternative lifestyle he wants to live. Pretty soon he finds himself on the scrapheap and having to compromise his beliefs in order to make something of himself. Rat Race is one year in his life, charting his fluctuating fortunes, set against the backdrop of the music and fashion of ...

Poems From the Eighties is an introduction to the early work of Exeter poet and novelistAndy Botterill. All the poems were written in the 1980s when the poet was in his late teens and early twenties and an undergraduate of Swansea University, before training and later working as a local news reporter in Devon. The poems are taken from the full collections Earth Rites, 1984, New England in the Fall and Chasing the Dragon, both from 1985, and If You Co...

At college in early 1980s Britain, Mark doesn't really fit in. A growing sense of alienation leads to tension with classmates, teachers and parents as he finds himself drawn to fellow loners who don't conform to society's rules. Along the way he finds love with Carrie and true friendship with Pat, bonded by a mutual love of punk fashion and music. With Pat he launches a band intent on hitting the musical big time.'Young Punks' is about growing up, as two friends discover pubs, gigs...