My name is JL Merrow and I—this will be no surprise to anyone who’s ever read
one of my books—am British. Painfully so, and nowhere was this brought home to
me more fully than on a recent trip to southern Italy. The sun didn’t so much
smile upon us as leer down with an evil glint in its metaphorical eye. It was
hot.
The Italian women strolled around in the 36 degree heat (that’s high nineties in
old money) looking cool and expertly made-up in elegant shift dresses; their
menfolk swaggered easily in shorts and open-necked linen shirts; all displayed
sunkissed limbs and perfect hair.
I, on the other hand, was a pink-faced, frizzy-haired fashion disaster, not so
much tanning in the Mediterranean sun as turning into one giant ambulatory freckle.
Noel Coward sang, famously, that “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday
sun.” This, I can assure you, is because in this green and pleasant land, we
don’t actually have any midday sun, as a rule. Oh, we get the
occasional short spell of warmer temperatures, giving the tabloids an excuse to
dust off the Cor, What a Scorcher! headlines and print pictures of
amply endowed young ladies sunning themselves. But sustained hot and sunny
weather, like really heavy snow, is something that happens in other countries,
not here—and when we do get it, we’re hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with it.
Perhaps that’s why our national drink is a nice hot cup of tea: we need it to
warm us up. But this is where I differ from my countrymen and women. My official
bio starts with the words, “JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who
refuses to drink tea.” I can’t stand the stuff. Hate it with a passion. The only
thing worse than tea is milky tea. And everyone in Britain drinks tea
with milk.
This has caused a few problems in my life. Particularly among older people,
there’s an assumption that of course everyone drinks tea. I’ve been to
places where it was literally the only beverage on offer at certain times. I’ve
been expected to drink tea at work, at family get-togethers, and even down a
pothole in Yorkshire, for goodness sake!
The Germans quaff beer; the Spanish sip sangria. In Italy you can grapple with a
grappa, and in France, take flight with la fée verte. In England, we get
brackish boiled water with a bagful of dried-up old leaves chucked in. Yum.
I loved southern Italy. The fabulous coastline; the lemon trees; the roman
ruins. But one thing about my recent trip endeared me to the area forever, and
no, it’s not the gelato, which is to die for, or the tiramisu, which is divine.
It’s that on the island of Ischia, they’ve found what is, in my view, the
perfect use for teapots: as nesting boxes for chaffinches:
Milk and sugar, anyone?
JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink
tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things,
chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever
again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting
one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.
She writes across genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance and
mysteries, and is frequently accused of humour. Her novel Slam! won the
2013 Rainbow Award for Best LGBT Romantic Comedy, and her novella Muscling
Through and novel Relief Valve were both EPIC Awards finalists.
JL Merrow is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, International
Thriller Writers, Verulam Writers’ Circle and the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet
organising team.
Plumber's Mate
#4
Death is what happens while you’re making other plans.
The last thing newly engaged plumber Tom Paretski needs is to stumble over
another dead body. He’s got enough on his mind already as the reality of his
impending marriage sinks in. Not only is his family situation complicated, his
heroism at a pub fire made him a local celebrity. Now everyone and their uncle
wants a piece of his psychic talents.
Hired to find a missing necklace, Tom and his fiancé, private investigator Phil
Morrison, wind up trying to unmask a killer—and there’s no shortage of suspects,
up to and including the local bishop himself.
As Tom and Phil try to uncover the truth, they find themselves pulled in all
directions by the conflicting pressures of their families and their own desires.
But the murderer they’re up against is a ruthless schemer who won’t hesitate to
kill again. If Tom and Phil aren’t careful, their love—and all their plans for
the future—could be blown down like a house of straw.
Warning: Contains a bishop of questionable Christian charity, a necklace of
questionable taste, and a plumber of questionable nationality who may be running
out of time.
Mystery [Samhain, On Sale: July 12, 2016, e-Book, ISBN:
9781619234611 / eISBN: 9781619234611]
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