The Boy in the Bramble was the very first novel I ever completed, out of the multitude I began and abandoned over the two decades I have been writing. Frankly, I have no idea why: despite my enjoyment of classics like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (yes, toxic, I know), as well as my unabashedly prurient delight in the romantic content present in fantasy novels such as Lois McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls, I have never been a particularly avid reader of romance. I had certainly never written it before. Why this was the first book to make it across the finish line, I can’t say. But here we are.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The story took three years of intermittent poking and prodding, some pandemic-lockdown beta reading, and a detailed study of James Joyce’s love letters to his wife to get to its current state. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Many thanks to Clementine le Bas for nurturing this story when it was but a sprout. Several of the early chapters were co-written with her before she had to bow out. All content has been published with her knowledge and express written permission.

And thank you to my husband, who assisted the writing process by gleefully interjecting with every botanical euphemism for sex he could think of.