A Life Apart - Paperback

by Roger M. Kean (Author)

1884-Deep in the Sudanese deserts a crazed religious fanatic spawns violent bloodshed. In Victorian England Edward and Richard are twins, with a blessed life, enjoying their elite private school for boys, and with prospects of army commissions ahead. But then a woman's greed tears them apart and destroys their comfortable world. Even though their love is forbidden, for Edward there is no other in his life but Richard, and for Richard a life without Edward is unbearable. Has fate determined that they must lead their lives apart? As members of the British force engaged in a doomed bid to save heroic Gordon of Khartoum, besieged by the frenzied armies of the Mahdi, Edward and Richard, cruelly separated by events, and ignorant of the other's presence, are thrown into their own desperate adventures as the conflict rages on around them... One an officer, the other a lowly cavalry trumpeter, both find Muslim allies willing to risk all to see them through... Two lovers far from each other in a hostile world of enervating heat, unforgiving sand, rocky wastes, but also burning passions-will the young men overcome the ordeal of a life apart to achieve their dream of a destiny together?

Author Biography

Roger M. Kean studied painting at Hornsey College of Art and film-making at the London Film School. In the 1980s, as co-founder of magazine publisher Newsfield, he created and edited the best-selling CRASH magazine for the Spectrum home computer and then ZZAP!64 for the Commodore 64. Since then, Kean has authored several history reference titles, including the well-reviewed THE COMPLETE CHRONICLE OF THE EMPERORS OF ROME. He has written five action tales based on a core of late-Victorian adventures, available as eBooks and in print. He also writes gay fiction, the first, FELIXITATIONS was one of the Books of the Month at Goodreads.com in July 2012. His second, a rip-roaring tale set during the Second Punic War and called "THUNDERBOLT - TORN ENEMY OF ROME" received some rave reviews, one of which ended: "Thunderbolt - Torn Enemy of Rome is the best historical romance I have ever read. It has the most real history and the most real love." The third of his gay-themed novels, A LIFE APART, is set during the religious war of the Mahdi in the Sudan during the late Victorian period. Kean lives with his partner in the medieval town of Ludlow, Shropshire, England.