Danny Boy

Published by HarperCollins in January 2023, Danny Boy is about the trials of becoming a man while managing friendships, finding out about love and making life decisions.

“There is no limit to what one can ask of one’s adolescent self.” 

This from the back cover:

Danny Byrne has grown up on a sprawling council estate. Until now, his life has followed the same pattern as his friends.

Danny is heading for A levels and then university. Dodds is following his dad into the family’s butcher’s business. Crockett will sail on opportunity’s wings as it comes his way, and Nobby is flirting with drugs and disaster.

As the long summer unfolds, the boys focus on girls, trade banter and test their friendships to the limit. When things take a darker turn, Danny is pushed to breaking point. Can he find love and become the man he wants to be?

 

I totally believed this book, which makes you live and breathe the poverty and excitement of working-class 1960s London inside its flawed but always sympathetic hero Danny. A terrific, edge-of-the-seat story about the growing pains of a young man trying to be brave and decent in a lawless world, whose ending had me in the right kind of tears.’ Maggie Gee

 

The Pimlico Kid

Published by HarperCollins, The Pimlico Kid is about first love and its abiding ability to evoke powerful emotions even decades later.

“Childhood love can endure but childhood promises are hard to keep.”

This from the back cover:

One boy. One street. One summer he will never forget.

A powerful and poignant debut from a compelling and authentic voice in commercial fiction. It’s 1963. Billy Driscoll and his best mate, Peter ‘Rooksy’ Rooker, have the run of their street. Whether it’s ogling sexy mum, Madge, as she pegs out her washing, or avoiding local bully Griggsy, the estates and bombsites of Pimlico have plenty to fire their fertile imagination. Billy is growing up and after years of being the puny one, he’s finally filling out. He is also taking more than a passing interest in Sarah Richards, his pretty neighbour. But he isn’t her only admirer – local heartthrob and rotten cheat, Kenneth ‘Kirk’ Douglas, likes her too – something drastic must be done if Billy is to get his girl. When Rooksy suggests a day out with Sarah and her shy friend, Josie, it seems like the perfect summer outing. Little do they know that it will be a day of declarations and revelations; of secrets and terrifying encounters – and that it will change them all forever.