Neil Blackmore

England, 1613. At the dazzling but brutal court of King James I, politician and philosopher Francis Bacon, the cleverest person in England, the inventor of the modern world, has a fight to survive. A life-threatening alliance of his enemies has formed around the King's exquisite but noxious lover, Carr. Bacon, always the outsider and the plotter, goes to his friend, James's neglected Queen, and together they come up with a plan. They will find their own beautiful young man, to supplant Carr in the King's bed and so defeat their enemies. Bacon then meets the thrillingly beautiful, mysteriously unreadable Villiers, whom he trains to entrance the King, but against all good sense, the two start a secret love affair.

But when a shocking murder scandal rocks the English court, new battle lines are drawn at court, and the question asked: what if the beautiful boy is the cleverest person of all?A twisting tale of court intrigue and forbidden love in the palaces, taverns and theatres of Jacobean London, with a cast of kings and queens, philosophers and playwrights, high-born aristocrats and low-born poisoners, and an astonishing suite of historical characters like Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare, James I and Anne of Denmark, the murderess Frances Carr and even Pocahontas, all told through the funny, ironic, self-aware voice of the world-changing Francis Bacon himself.

Brothers Benjamin and Edgar have so far led a quiet life, but change is afoot as they enter a world of glorious sights and People of Quality on their Grand Tour of Europe. But a trunk full of powdered silver wigs and matching suits isn't enough to embed them into high society. As Edgar clings on to conventions, Benjamin pushes against them. And when the charming, seductive Horace Lavelle promises Benjamin a real adventure, it's only a matter of time before chaos and love ensue.

Welcome to England, 1809. London is a violent, intolerant city, exhausted by years of war, beset by soaring prices and political tensions. By day, John Church preaches on the radical possibilities of love to a multicultural, working-class congregation in Southwark. But by night, he crosses the river to the secret and glamorous world of a gay molly house on Vere Street, where ordinary men reinvent themselves as funny, flirtatious drag queens and rent boys cavort with labourers and princes alike. There, Church becomes the first minister to offer marriages between men, at enormous risk.

Everything changes when Church meets the unworldly and free-thinking Ned, part of a group of African activist abolitionists who attend his chapel. The two bond over their broken childhoods, and Church falls obsessively in love with Ned's tender nature. In a fragile, colourful secret world under threat, Church's love for Ned takes him to the edge of reason. Based on the incredible true story of one of the most important events in queer history, Radical Love is a sensuous and prescient story about gender and sexuality, and how the most vulnerable survive in dangerous times.