Paolo G. Grossi
LGBTQ Stories & Historical Fiction
Serafino da Ferrara
Worldwide Release
Anno Domini 2023
Available at Amazon, Waterstones, The Conrad Press and all major retailers.
Paperback £. 10.99
US $ 13.00
EU € 15.00
Kindle & E-Book £. 3.99
US $ 4.99
EU € 4.99
The Story
Ferrara, 1505 AD. Talented Serafino is apprenticed to Mastro Filargiro, one of the city's leading artists.
Serafino finds love, but his mastery takes him on a perilous journey across Italy's feuding city-states, unaware that his virtuosity is a threat to the pre-eminence of the hitherto unchallenged masters of the Renaissance.
His life must take a dramatic new turn in the hope of escaping their enmity.
Washington DC, 2008. Parker's first year at Georgetown High is coming to an end.
His father is appointed Consul General in Florence. Parker enthusiastically embraces his new life and befriends handsome Beppe.
But almost everyone around him has been keeping secrets. And the fifteenth-century palazzo where his family now lives unexpectedly reveals its long-buried mysteries.
Separated by five hundred years, yet united by their talent, Serafino and Parker embark on similar journey of discovery while fellow artists, assassins, princes and envious classmates rage and scheme around them.
The Chapters
I. All happy families...
II. The boys of Ferrara
III. ...are alike
IV. Lungo il Canale
V. Painting Telegonus
VI. Sacellum Sixtinum
VII. Rossini Spritz
VIII. And then we emerged to see the stars again
IX. Book of Revelation
X. Santa Maria Novella
The Tiergarten Tales
Berlin. Its Boys. Their Stories
June 2021
Available at Amazon, Waterstones, The Conrad Press and all major retailers
Paperback £. 9.99
Kindle & E-Book £. 3.99
US $ 4.99
Europe €. 4,99
Ten short stories following the lives, love affairs and misdemeanours of men and boys of Berlin across its turbulent history.
In the present day young Karl falls for glamorous Bill, an American in the midst of a mid-life crisis as big as his bank balance.
Felix and Walther bestride a deep class divide, forging an enduring bond in 1890s Prussia.
Kaspar and Max navigate the fraught upheavals of the Weimar Republic by skilfully marketing the only commodity in demand, unaware that it will lead them onto different and dangerous paths in their lives.
Roland and Heiko spend a blissful summer of true friendship sailing on a boat along the placid waters of the Wannsee, revealing repressed truths to each other.
Young Kazimierz leaves his impoverished Silesian village and sets off on an epic journey to the Prussian capital, the seat of an ageing Frederick the Great, not knowing that his heavenly beauty, endearing naivety and, ultimately, fate will transform his life once through the gates of the city.
Echoes within echoes. Circles within circles: the world of privilege - snobbish, hierarchical and obsessed with class, the world of poverty and moral compromise, the toxic masculinity of the German Empire and the Prussian officer class.
A novel? A collection of short stories? A play within? And why not all three?
The Stories
The Lodger
A Solution
La Béte Humaine
The Woods of Baden
The Typist
Zoologische Garten
Ruhe
Love, Unseen
The Eyes of the King
Tiergarten
Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue - perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one.
Milan Kundera
Reviews
In a gay literature largely populated by the feral and the fetishistic it is such a relief to find a book in which people are inspired by loyalty and tenderness.
Amazon
A delightful surprise, far from the run-of-the-mill gay fiction I had been fearing when I bought this without seeing the reviews.
Amazon
A wonderful set of stories providing the reader with such a brilliantly conveyed range of emotions and set in a variety of contexts.
Goodreads
Deeply compelling, unflinching and beautiful.
By no means an easy read, but a rewarding one for its insights into human condition and lines of pure poetry that took my breath hostage.
Goodreads
Much more a novel with characters who are gay than a gay romance.
An absorbing, thought provoking read.
Goodreads
