Book Title: The Man Inside Me
Author: Sean Kerr
Publisher: SGK Publications
Cover Artist: SGK Publications
Release Date 31st September 2018
Genre/s: MM Romance, MM Historical, MM Gothic Romance, MM Paranormal Romance
Heat Rating: 4 flames
Length: 202 Pages
It’s a standalone story.
Blurb
Victorian London is a difficult place to be when you are gay, as Henry and Gabriel know all too well.
When they were young at Oxford University, Henry and Gabriel’s love burned hot and bright, and they thought to change the world together until a devastating tragedy ripped them apart.
Now, as youth fades away, Henry can no longer stand to see his own reflection in the mirror. All he sees is a sad, tired old man whose body has betrayed him. He craves the touch of another, to feel attractive and vital once more but his obsession with finding a cure for insanity has stolen his life away, and now his work has taken on a dark and sinister dimension. How far will he go to recapture the passion of his lost youth?
Gabriel fears that Henry is losing his mind, and when a brutal killer invades their lives, they are thrust into the dark depths of Victorian London in a fight for their very lives.
As their friendship is tested to its limits, Gabriel cannot help but wonder if there is still a chance for love. Can they move beyond the friendship that has spanned over thirty years and find the love that once made their hearts beat as one?
You may never be too old to find love, but will you be able to survive it?
- Available on Kindle Unlimited
Review
“I see the man inside me, the other man, the
better man. The more attractive man. He is so full of confidence, so full of
life, so full of all the qualities that prevent me from finding such
companionship, and I find more and more that I wish to be that man, the man
inside me.
I will find the answer. Now that I seem him (…).
For the man inside me is me, and I will find some way to set him free.”
So, I wrote a very long (some might say of novel proportions)
review yesterday, and two minutes ago I deleted every single word. In my
eagerness to convey how much I adored this story, how awe-inspiring the writing
had been to me, I ended up writing a long piece of nonsensical gibberish.
Because, let there be no doubt, this is one fabulous book.
The story, the characters, the historical setting, and the way it was written
all took my breath away. The writing is almost lyrical, with well-chosen words
placing the story in its time and the reader slap bang in the middle of that
world.
And what a world it is, this London in Victorian times. Sean
Kerr doesn’t give us a romanticized version of history. This is England in the
second half of the nineteenth century in all its glory, but also in all its
darkness, depravity, and narrow-mindedness. A world in which being gay went
from being frowned upon to being a crime.
“The truth of the matter is, in order to
survive and exist in a world of our choosing, we must become that which the
world expects. Normal and sober, we must conform to society’s code of moral
beliefs, though they may conflict with those that we know to be true to our
hearts.”
But, this book is so much more than a history lesson. In
fact, you may well recognize the story and the characters from a classic tale
most of us are familiar with. Except that the author gives the old familiar a
new and inspired twist, one that kept me enraptured from the first sentence to
the last word. What starts off as an apparently angsty love-story slowly, and
almost imperceptibly, transforms into a tale of darkness and horror of such
proportions that it became almost impossible to hope for a positive, never mind
happy, ending. And no, I’m not going to tell you whether or not you’ll find
happiness at the end of this book, but I promise you’ll be on the edge of your
seat while you’re reading to find out.
The various characters in this story tell their parts of it
in alternating chapters, in what can probably be best described as monologues
directed at the reader, and for me that was just about perfect in this book. It
allowed me to get to know Henry and Gabriel (as well as one or two others) at
such a deep level, and yet, as the book progresses we discover that all those
characters lie to themselves, and in the process to their audience, which of
course only makes the story more fascinating.
This is a multi-layered story with a multi-layered title. Who
knew ‘the man inside me’ could refer to so many different meanings? The blurb
only tells you part of what you’ll encounter on these pages, and the layers
covering the deeper story are lifted slowly, almost imperceptibly, pulling the
reader into a web of ever increasing darkness without them fully realizing it
until they’re in the middle of the mayhem (or should that be Bedlam?).
I’m in serious danger of once again gushing my way to an
unreadable and overly-long gush-fest, so I’m forcing myself to stop now and
leave you with this final conclusion:
Funny, sad, terrifying, totally engrossing and stunningly
beautiful, this is one extraordinary book telling a story that will stay with
me for a long, long time and a very deserving addition to my list of
extra-special reads.
About the Author
Hi everyone, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Sean Kerr, and I am a 49-year-old gay man living in Cardiff, Wales with my husband of 28 years, Derek. We have two cats, Rita and Harry, and a host of tropical fish.I worked on building sites for years, and I used the money earned from that to put myself through college, specialist paint techniques etc. I trained in fine art, and then I went out and painted murals on client’s walls, and created Roman Bathrooms and fantasy hand painted bedrooms, all the rage back in the late eighties and nineties. I then became an Interior Designer for a large DIY chain. For the past thirteen years I ran my own Interiors business, and while that is no longer in existence, I am now looking for my next challenge in life!
By night I am an Author, and I am very proud to be an author for Extasy Books. It took me some years to get to this point. I spent a very long time trying to get an agent because I thought it was the right thing to do, and after a heck of a lot of refusals, I nearly gave up. I came so close to hitting the delete button on Dead Camp 1 because I thought I did not stand a chance. At the very last moment, I decided to have a go at approaching a few publishers directly, and I sent the manuscript to six. Within two weeks, I had offers of publication from three! Let’s just say that there may have been tears lol. It was my chance, at last, to become a part of a world that I have always loved and admired from a distance, and it is one of the very best things to ever happened to me.
Dead Camp is the first series I ever wrote, and then there is my short novella called Hush Little Baby. Dead Camp is my take on the Vampire genre, an MM Paranormal Romance series that is set against a backdrop of World War 2. However, the series uses key moments from History to tell one enormous saga, and I have loved every single moment of writing it. There are five books in the Dead Camp series.
Hush is a pure horror story with more than a nod towards such classic programmes as The Twilight Zone and Tales of The Unexpected. The project happened just after I completed Dead Camp 3 and it is a story that I had to get out of my system. It’s definitely a different beast to my Vampire saga, and I hope it will make you go to bed with the lights on lol!
I recently ventured into the world of self-publishing, and as such, I have just released my first independent book series, The Last Child. The Last Child is a horror series that is in 3 parts dealing with the occult. It has a definite Dan Brown vibe in that I love conspiracy stories, so I have used religion and some intriguing legends as the backdrop to this contemporary supernatural thriller that tells the story of a female protagonist trying to protect her young student. Neither of them realises how their lives, and indeed their histories, are intertwined in the most horrific and tragic ways.
My latest book, ‘The Man Inside Me’ is an MM Victorian Gothic Romance, and I think it is the favourite thing I have written so far. It deals with two men in their fifties trying to find love again, a subject that is very close to my heart as I approach that milestone. It is a very important book to me, and while it has some very ‘KERR’ twists and turns, it is, at its heart, a very romantic tale that deals with middle age. I am particularly proud of this book, and it is a very different spin on the MM genre.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to meeting you on social media.
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