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Latest Love Stories
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Book Excerpts
Blood Diamond Chapter 17
Tregoning was mad, Daniel decided, as he walked away from that slumped heap of bone and withered flesh beneath the shade tree. Too many years of fever and hardship and loneliness among the heathen had broken his mind. But Daniel saw, in that sad, frail old shadow of a man, his own future, and he knew that something would have to be done.
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Book Excerpts
Blood Diamond Chapter 16
They were trying to kill him. Daniel was certain of that, but he puzzled it out over the next days, trying to make sense of it all. They were trying to kill him, but obviously they couldn’t do it openly, or it could have happened at any time, at any moment, a thousand times over.
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Short Stories
Give and Go
When an ex-footballer and ex-sports journalist returns to London after twenty years in Australia, he finds himself confronted with a reminder of his broken marriage and the events that propelled him to the other side of the earth.
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Book Excerpts
Blood Diamond Chapter 15
But for the next few days, stretching into long, hot weeks, Daniel had no opportunity to see Tregoning. And so the time passed and they trekked further and further into that enormous, signless wilderness. The trees and hillocks, the rivers and valleys and plains, seemed to meld together. Daniel knew they were moving essentially northwards, sometimes zigging and zagging east and west by the dictates of a non-existent compass.
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Short Stories
Africa
Julie was an unsuitable girlfriend for Mikey. Unfortunately, even since their split, he can’t get her out of his head.
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Book Excerpts
Blood Diamond Chapter 14
For a while after that it seemed there was nothing to cause Daniel any great concern. But by degrees he became aware that things were changing for him – attitudes were changing. Even as he became more warmly embraced into the circle of the Royals, as he ate with them and spent time in their presence, as he tried out on them odd snatches of words and phrases he was learning, so he became increasingly more uncomfortable in the company of the ordinary people.
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Love Classics
Pride and Prejudice Chapter 19
The next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins made his declaration in form. Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as his leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at the moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the observances, which he supposed a regular part of the business.
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Short Stories
Praying Hands
This is the happiest day in Gigi’s life. She has met the man of her dreams and they couldn’t be closer or more passionate. So, why is she constantly plagued by these strange premonitions …
Latest Columns
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To come out or not to come out, that is the question
Dear Gabriel
I’m a gay man in my 30s. I had one partner for 12 years until he died of a heart attack. I couldn’t really date for a couple of years, then I found it quite hard to find someone. I suppose I’m the kind that likes to settle with someone.
Finally, I have met someone. I really like him. He’s a lawyer. He’s fairly recently divorced and has two teenage kids. The only trouble is that we’ve been dating now for a couple of years and he still hasn’t come out to his kids.
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Romantic Fiction Writing - How to find ideas through daydreams
Daydreams as a source of ideas
We’re discussing four different sources of ideas that you, as a writer of romantic fiction, can milk at will. Ideas that, elaborated and complicated, will give you original stories that’ll form the backbones of your novel. In this piece, I’d like to tease out how much of a creative engine room your own day-dreaming can be.
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Romantic Fiction Writing - How to find ideas
Characters generate their own stories Some writers of romantic fiction regard ideas as the gems on which their fortune will be based. I believe, on the contrary, that ideas are a dime a dozen, available in such profusion that you’re never likely to run short of them. If this proposition sounds ludicrous to you – if ideas, or the lack of them, are the stumbling block in your creative path – then this short series of articles is for you.
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Literary Love
Love was in the crisp autumn air, as I strutted jauntily towards the City Book Fair.
Books summon up romance in my mind. More specifically, the image of a woman with whom I instantly fell in love as she pored over a textbook in the university library, way back when.
Way back when, round John Lennon glasses were big. And round. And she was wearing them, thus completing a vision of delectation which encompassed ebony ringlets falling forward over her flawlessly creamy face, a few freckles, a beauty spot … and a purple tie-dyed t-shirt with pink-paisley-patterned trim which, damn, I just cannot seem to edit out of my mind’s eye.
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Good manners for gay men
I wrote recently about being “love’s executioner” – I had, I guess, burst the bubble of fantasy and hope when I met in person a guy who’d approached me online - and told him (and showed him) that I was just ordinary old me. Not the fabulous, handsome, all loving, all giving, never disappointing sex machine he had built me up to be.
Allaboutlove News
Updates from our official blog...
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Romantic Fiction Writing - How to find ideas through daydreams
Daydreams as a source of ideas
We’re discussing four different sources of ideas that you, as a writer of romantic fiction, can milk at will. Ideas that, elaborated and complicated, will give you original stories that’ll form the backbones of your novel. In this piece, I’d like to tease out how much of a creative engine room your own day-dreaming can be.
