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Gay Romance #4
The Paris Novel
Alternate cover edition for ASIN B00FCUCM04
27-year-old Peter Ferguson has taken himself to Paris after splitting up with his girlfriend, to find new love - and write. The last thing he is looking for is handsome blond Fabrice, a young Frenchman who also identifies himself as straight. But a love they cannot at first acknowledge begins to blossom between them. Only an enforced separation obliges them to admit the truth. Yet where bettwe to discover the complex intricacies of love, and of yourself, than in the Europe's most romantic capital? The city of Paris, its vibrant lifestyle and its inhabitants are all integral characters in this book.
27-year-old Peter Ferguson has taken himself to Paris after splitting up with his girlfriend, to find new love - and write. The last thing he is looking for is handsome blond Fabrice, a young Frenchman who also identifies himself as straight. But a love they cannot at first acknowledge begins to blossom between them. Only an enforced separation obliges them to admit the truth. Yet where bettwe to discover the complex intricacies of love, and of yourself, than in the Europe's most romantic capital? The city of Paris, its vibrant lifestyle and its inhabitants are all integral characters in this book.
Kindle Edition
First published September 21, 2013
About the author
Anthony McDonald
71 books108 followersAnthony McDonald studied history at Durham University. He worked very briefly as a musical instrument maker and as a farm labourer before moving into the theatre, where he has worked in almost every capacity except those of Director and Electrician.
His first novel, Orange Bitter, Orange Sweet, was published in 2001 and his second, Adam, in 2003.
Orange Bitter, Orange Sweet became the first book in a Seville trilogy that also comprises Along The Stars and Woodcock Flight.
Other books include the sequel to Adam, - Blue Sky Adam - and the stand-alone adventure story, Getting Orlando.
Ivor's Ghosts, a psychological thriller, was published in April 2014.
The Dog In The Chapel, and Ralph: Diary of a Gay Teen, both appeared in 2014. Anthony is the also the author of the Gay Romance series, which comprises ten short novels.
Anthony McDonald's short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic
He has also written the scripts for several Words and Music events, based around the lives and works of composers including Schubert and Brahms, which have been performed in Britain and in Portugal.
His travel writing has appeared in the Independent newspaper.
After several years of living and teaching English in France McDonald is now based based in rural East Sussex.
His first novel, Orange Bitter, Orange Sweet, was published in 2001 and his second, Adam, in 2003.
Orange Bitter, Orange Sweet became the first book in a Seville trilogy that also comprises Along The Stars and Woodcock Flight.
Other books include the sequel to Adam, - Blue Sky Adam - and the stand-alone adventure story, Getting Orlando.
Ivor's Ghosts, a psychological thriller, was published in April 2014.
The Dog In The Chapel, and Ralph: Diary of a Gay Teen, both appeared in 2014. Anthony is the also the author of the Gay Romance series, which comprises ten short novels.
Anthony McDonald's short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic
He has also written the scripts for several Words and Music events, based around the lives and works of composers including Schubert and Brahms, which have been performed in Britain and in Portugal.
His travel writing has appeared in the Independent newspaper.
After several years of living and teaching English in France McDonald is now based based in rural East Sussex.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 3, 2021
Paris from the inside out and back again.
Paris is the traditional City of Love. But it is so much more than that. It is a boiling mixture of love and hate, friend and enemy, daytime and nighttime livers, drinking partners, dark alleys and shady bars, bright outside dining with hangover eyes, sharp contrasts of towers and rivers, all mixed together with real and fake people doing what they think they have to do as they struggle to survive for the occasional moment that they live for.
Then it is over and everything and everyone changes into the normal nothingness on the outside while squeezing the pain tight inside the walls of the heart and filing the memory in the recesses if the brain.
No one ever sees the true Paris. As novel as it seems at first glimpse, you never see more then a small fuzzy part at a time. Sitting with friends drinking coffee or wine on the edge of the street in front of your favorite shop to meet friends, or carefully viewing the contents of a museum or gallery, the view is always from the top of the tower while live only exists at the bottom.
Art is magical. Live is maniacal. Architecture is manipulative. Nature is superlative. Romance is the driving force of life, only supplemented by food and drink. Money is the glue that holds it all together yet it tears everything apart.
The streets are dirty. The people are creepy. The air is unbreathable. The streets are impassible. It is expensive and extemporaneous while exclusive and excessive. Yet I live Paris.
Paris is the traditional City of Love. But it is so much more than that. It is a boiling mixture of love and hate, friend and enemy, daytime and nighttime livers, drinking partners, dark alleys and shady bars, bright outside dining with hangover eyes, sharp contrasts of towers and rivers, all mixed together with real and fake people doing what they think they have to do as they struggle to survive for the occasional moment that they live for.
Then it is over and everything and everyone changes into the normal nothingness on the outside while squeezing the pain tight inside the walls of the heart and filing the memory in the recesses if the brain.
No one ever sees the true Paris. As novel as it seems at first glimpse, you never see more then a small fuzzy part at a time. Sitting with friends drinking coffee or wine on the edge of the street in front of your favorite shop to meet friends, or carefully viewing the contents of a museum or gallery, the view is always from the top of the tower while live only exists at the bottom.
Art is magical. Live is maniacal. Architecture is manipulative. Nature is superlative. Romance is the driving force of life, only supplemented by food and drink. Money is the glue that holds it all together yet it tears everything apart.
The streets are dirty. The people are creepy. The air is unbreathable. The streets are impassible. It is expensive and extemporaneous while exclusive and excessive. Yet I live Paris.
May 14, 2014
This book is atmospheric and it's language approaches poetry. I enjoyed the romance.
January 25, 2024
This was surprisingly good. A google search of ‘novels featuring a gay man in Paris’ brought this up for me because, well, it’s January in Canada!
Much better written than many of the queer lit novels I have read of late, and with a fun, intriguing story and a bunch of zany characters that arrive in the expats life unexpectedly, and shake the foundations of normal on a regular basis.
Add in an unplanned - and irresistible - affair and the fact that it is set not just in Paris but, even better, the Marais, and I didn’t want this to end.
I could have kept going for at least another 200 pages - very much fun.
Much better written than many of the queer lit novels I have read of late, and with a fun, intriguing story and a bunch of zany characters that arrive in the expats life unexpectedly, and shake the foundations of normal on a regular basis.
Add in an unplanned - and irresistible - affair and the fact that it is set not just in Paris but, even better, the Marais, and I didn’t want this to end.
I could have kept going for at least another 200 pages - very much fun.
October 8, 2013
Definitely another 4.5 Once again, Anthony McDonald paints a picture of his locale with the bravura brush of a French Impressionist—an ever-shifting palette of colors and emotions. Elegant descriptions place the reader hard on the cobbled, rain-slicked streets of the Marais, and then he dissolves the image at the flick of a word into a haze of yearning, which veils the background through which emerges the confusion of 27-year-old Peter. He's an Englishman who should know better the set of his life, but a recent break-up with his latest girlfriend has thrown his certainty and driven him to Paris to recover stability through writing a novel.
Unfortunately for Peter, the man who enters his life is not confused, but Fabrice is definitely uncertain, torn between the standard life of normalcy his wealthy, land-owning family and his fiancé expect, and the gay life he'd prefer to live. Fabrice is not alone is disturbing Peter's comfort zone, and all the characters who appear in the drama are well crafted, brimming with an intensity of life all their own. As the last line of the blurb says: "The city of Paris, its vibrant lifestyle and its inhabitants are all integral characters in this book." And they most certainly are, all the way to the satisfying conclusion.
Unfortunately for Peter, the man who enters his life is not confused, but Fabrice is definitely uncertain, torn between the standard life of normalcy his wealthy, land-owning family and his fiancé expect, and the gay life he'd prefer to live. Fabrice is not alone is disturbing Peter's comfort zone, and all the characters who appear in the drama are well crafted, brimming with an intensity of life all their own. As the last line of the blurb says: "The city of Paris, its vibrant lifestyle and its inhabitants are all integral characters in this book." And they most certainly are, all the way to the satisfying conclusion.
September 23, 2013
Boy I didn't want this to end...I can't put into words how I feel after reading Anthony's books.
This was beautiful.
This was beautiful.
May 9, 2026
just okay
I liked some of this book. Too dramatic of expressions. Much of it felt like tossing names of locations about without describing what they meant. Like a tour with no meaning.
I liked some of this book. Too dramatic of expressions. Much of it felt like tossing names of locations about without describing what they meant. Like a tour with no meaning.
July 23, 2014
While the author's command of English far exceeds that of the average M/M romance author and the attempt at giving more depth to the genre is commendable, I still do not feel this work is going anywhere.
The luscious descriptions feel contrived; they are not beautiful enough to attain real literary beauty nor do they add up to a meaningful mirror of the characters' psychologies.
Characters, despite the author's attempt at making much of them and of the situations they find themselves in, are so ordinary they have no spark in them and end by being dull.
The luscious descriptions feel contrived; they are not beautiful enough to attain real literary beauty nor do they add up to a meaningful mirror of the characters' psychologies.
Characters, despite the author's attempt at making much of them and of the situations they find themselves in, are so ordinary they have no spark in them and end by being dull.
December 8, 2014
A good story. I enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews