Gregory's Story - Paperback

by Roger M. Kean (Author)

"Roger Kean writes like the rest of us breathe... effortlessly." - Goodreads author Summer Michaels A heavy burden rides the shoulders of young Gregory Hilliard-to discover the fate of a father he never knew. Did the elder Hilliard die with Hicks Pasha's army at El Obeid in 1883 or, as his mother fervently hopes, did he somehow escape the massacre there by the fanatic Mahdist Dervishes? And then there is the puzzle of his real name. Is he who he thinks he is? Born and raised in Cairo, fluent in native languages, Gregory is pitched into the heat of war after his mother dies. The teenager makes his way by joining General Kitchener's Nile campaign to retake the Sudan from the Khalifa's Mahdist armies. In doing so Gregory hopes to find out what happened to his father. Two spies-Edward and Richard Rainbow-help in his quest, brothers with their own dark secret. But his greatest support comes from the Ja'alin Zaki, the love of his young life, his friend and soul-mate. In a world that refuses to recognize the right of young men to love and in an era that looks down on the "inferior" natives, Gregory faces his most difficult battle for personal happiness. Success will bring him and Zaki fulfilment but also unravel a tragic and at the same time life-enhancing mystery with its roots in far away England... and in the solving of it, one which might yet rip the two lovers apart. "Gregory's Story" is the companion to the Goodreads.com March 2013 M/M Romance and Queereaders Book of the Month choice "A Life Apart". While "Gregory's Story" stands alone as a novel, the events are greatly enriched by having first read "A Life Apart", which features Edward and Richard Rainbow, who appear as Gregory's companions, some 13 years on.

Author Biography

Roger Kean (also Roger M. Kean) has been writing for many years, but only in the past four as an author of published fiction. 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, set during the religious war of the Mahdi in the Sudan during the late Victorian period, was a Book of the Month at Goodreads.com in March 2013. Author Gerry Burnie called it, "Superb writing, refreshing break-through plot, and bang-on history." Having spent a stint at Hornsey College of Art studying painting, Kean attended the London Film School, where he began writing film scripts and his first attempts at full-scale novels. For eight years he edited film documentaries for the BBC before moving into full-time journalism. 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. Now he spends his time inventing new scenarios to populate with characters from the imagination. Kean lives with his partner in a medieval town in Shropshire, England.