Aslightly raunchier sequel to 21 Days In Swansea. It picks up the story a few months later, with retired investment banker, Edward Chapman, now running a second-hand bookshop with new partner, Jill, having left his old life and unfaithful estranged wife, Alice, behind in Oxford, with no plans to return. A chance visit to Neath one afternoon persuades him to open a second bookshop and coffee shop there but his Alice turns up unexpectedly, intent on staying 21 days in a bid to win h...

Bristol 1985 - at its heart a thriving indie music scene with its own clubs, shops like Revolver Records and releases by labels like Sarah Records which offer escape for fifteen-year old kids like Will, who holds imaginary conversations with the likes of Dan Treacy of The Television Personalities, Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream and Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine - until with his friend John, he seizes the opportunity to form their own band and to carve a path to acceptance, a recor...

Sick Note & Scrapbook combines the poems of the 1995 short pamphlet Sick Note and the 1998 short pamphlet Scrapbook by Exeter poet and novelistAndy Botterill, when the author was working as a local news reporter in the South West of England. The poems of Sick Note are more personal and have themes of love, loss, longing, heartache and break-up, whilst the themes explored in Scrapbook are more general and centre on social realism. Many appeared i...

The Wind Changes Direction combines the poems of the 2007 full collection of the same name and the 2009 full collection Celebrations of Life by Exeter poet and novelistAndy Botterill in one poetry book. The poems are in a confessional style and in the vein of the American Beat tradition. They explore themes of reflection, relationships, family and friendships, the passing of time, parenthood, sport, transport, work, the ageing process, routines, the seasons, cont...

Marking the Occasions collects all the author's published short stories and short prose of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s in chronological order, and incorporates three collections Marking the Occasions, Funny Farm and The Word. By keeping to date order, it allows the reader to follow the author's stylistic development over time from more experimental early works to short stories in the more classic, traditional style of the genre. The pieces variously explo...

Years Spinning By Out Of Control combines the poems of the 1998 collection of the same name and the 2000 pamphlet Water Under the Bridge by Exeter poet and novelistAndy Botterill. The poems explore themes of love, loss, longing, heartache and break-up, sex, substance abuse and social realism. Many appeared in their original format in the small presses of both the UK and America at the time of writing, and all the poems have been updated with revisions and additions for th...

Poems From the Eighties is an introduction to the early work of Exeter poet and novelistAndy Botterill. All the poems were written in the 1980s when the poet was in his late teens and early twenties and an undergraduate of Swansea University, before training and later working as a local news reporter in Devon. The poems are taken from the full collections Earth Rites, 1984, New England in the Fall and Chasing the Dragon, both from 1985, and If You Co...

Sands of Time combines the poems of the 2013 full collection of the same name with the shorter pamphlets Missing Parts (2015) and Twenty Poems (2021), as well as a selection of new poems by Exeter poet and novelistAndy Botterill and are the most recent ones he's written. The poems are in a confessional style and in the vein of the American Beat tradition. They explore themes of reflection, relationships, bereavement and the loss of a father, parenthood, ...

The Rat Race is the 1980s creation of Margaret Thatcher's Britain. Paul, who has just graduated and wants to be a writer, faces overwhelming pressure to 'get on' and join the Rat Race, in sharp contrast to the alternative lifestyle he wants to live. Pretty soon he finds himself on the scrapheap and having to compromise his beliefs in order to make something of himself. Rat Race is one year in his life, charting his fluctuating fortunes, set against the backdrop of the music and fashion of ...

The late 1990s in a provincial town in Greater London. Two very different characters, one male, one female, with one thing in common, dissatisfaction with their everyday lives and solace and escape in a private world of fantasies and daydreams. Martin is nerdy, obsessed with sports trivia, struggling to fit in at his workplace, where he is bullied. Jacqui an unmarried mum suffering at the hands of an abusive partner. The novel charts their respective progress through failed attempts at rel...

At college in early 1980s Britain, Mark doesn't really fit in. A growing sense of alienation leads to tension with classmates, teachers and parents as he finds himself drawn to fellow loners who don't conform to society's rules. Along the way he finds love with Carrie and true friendship with Pat, bonded by a mutual love of punk fashion and music. With Pat he launches a band intent on hitting the musical big time.'Young Punks' is about growing up, as two friends discover pubs, gigs...

Simon is a would-be writer and a serial monogamist, with a habit of self-sabotage. He loves women but has a habit of messing up his relationships with them, despite his best efforts and starting each new relationship with optimism and genuine conviction it will last this time.'Four Women' charts Simon's life with consecutive girlfriends, one after another, over a twenty-year period. Through a mixture of his own inadequacies and hang ups as well as theirs, things go wrong, until he e...