Avery Cockburn's Blog: Avery Cockburn's Blog

The fourth and fifth Year of the Lads books, for the month of November, are Play It Safe and Playing With Fire. We’re doubling up this month and next to accommodate the series’ holiday books.

This week is all about Play It Safe, Fergus and John’s happier-ever-after short story!

Quick aside: I’ve expanded the interactive Lads’ Guide to Glasgow (and beyond!) to include the three new locations we meet in Play It Safe: Kelvin Walkway, the Barras market, and the real-life sauna I semi-based ...

Welcome back to coverage of our third Year of the Lads book, Playing to Win, featuring those mad lads Colin MacDuff and (Lord) Andrew Sunderland.

DID YOU KNOW?

Subscribers to my newsletter can now read a “development diary” I kept during the creation of Playing to Win, from Day 1 of Draft 1 through the rewriting phase to final copyedits. It’s a jaw-droppingly unfiltered look at the process of creating a novel. The only change I made was to assign real-life people nicknames to protect thei...

Welcome back to coverage of our third Year of the Lads book, Playing to Win, starring those wild-eyed enemies-to-lovers Colin MacDuff and (Lord) Andrew Sunderland.

Quick aside: There’s an official Playing to Win soundtrack! 

Tidal (best sound and artist compensation) Spotify YouTube

Warning: Soundtrack may cause dancing, crying, and dreams of revolution.

And now the main feature:

Playing to Win takes place amid the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, an issue that po...

The third Year of the Lads book, for the month of October, is the second novel, Playing to Win, starring many readers’ favorite couple, our own wee drama queens Colin MacDuff and Lord Andrew Sunderland (“It’s only a courtesy title”).

I’ve expanded the interactive Lads’ Guide to Glasgow (and beyond!) to include Playing to Win locations, including Colin’s Drumchapel tower block, Andrew’s ancestral castle—as well as their myriad travel spots like Edinburgh, Lower Manhattan, and the Aegean Sea.

...

In previous posts, I introduced the soundtrack to my new stand-alone contemporary romance Cicadas: A Totally Ordinary Epic Love Story, a soundtrack you can find in all these places:

Tidal (I use this service because it pays artists more and has the best sound quality) Spotify (embedded below) YouTube (also embedded below) Amazon Apple Music Cicadas official soundtrack on SpotifyCicadas official soundtrack as YouTube playlistNotes on Part 3 (2021)

Though I had o...

Welcome back to the Year of the Lads, in which we focus on one Glasgow Lads book each month through next July. September’s book is Book 1, Playing for Keeps (Fergus and John novel).

One of our main characters, John Burns, has just begun a summer internship with New Shores, a fictional organization providing legal and financial aid to people seeking asylum in the UK, specifically those fleeing homophobic regimes. 

This storyline was originally inspired by the 2014 BAFTA-award-winning BBC...

Welcome back to the Year of the Lads, in which we focus on one Glasgow Lads book each month through next July. September’s book is Book 1, Playing for Keeps (Fergus and John novel).

One of our main characters, Fergus Taylor, is an architect with an intriguing hobby: salvage art, in which discarded items are recycled into beautiful, one-of-a-kind works.

This excerpt shows John exploring Fergus’s works (not a euphemism):

F.T. 07-2013 F.T. 07-2013

Standing on a chair in Fergus’s...

Welcome back to the Year of the Lads, in which we focus on one Glasgow Lads book each month through next July. September’s book is Book 1, Playing for Keeps (Fergus and John novel).

Fun fact: Though it was the second Glasgow Lads book to be released (after the prequel novella, Play On), Playing for Keeps was the first book I wrote, starting April 2014. I wrote a few books ahead of time so they could be released soon after each other starting May 2015.

I’ve expanded the interactive Lads’ Gu...

Welcome back to the Year of the Lads, in which we focus on one Glasgow Lads book each month through next July. August’s book is Book 0.5, Play On (Duncan + Brodie novella).

Duncan Harris is a romantic to his core. Not only in his relationships, but in his fervent fandom of his beloved Black Cats, Sunderland AFC (who also happen to be my own favorite team. Coincidence?).

In Chapter 6 he explains his passion for football to a skeptical Brodie as they lie together in Brodie’s twin bed...

Welcome back to the Year of the Lads, in which we focus on one Glasgow Lads book each month through next July. August’s book is Book 0.5, Play On (Duncan + Brodie novella).

Duncan Harris is a romantic to his core. Not only in his relationships, but in his fervent fandom of his beloved Black Cats, Sunderland AFC (who also happen to be my own favorite team. Coincidence?).

In Chapter 6 he explains his passion for football to a skeptical Brodie as they lie together in Brodie’s twin bed (platon...