This author has been favorited by 3 users.
Contact Information:
Email Address: ally@allester.co.uk
Books By A. L. Lester
Word Count: 86000
Character Identities: Bisexual, Gay
Summary: Celebrate World Naked Gardening Day with five gay romance novellas! The Naked Gardening Day stories are a collaboration between Holly Day, Nell Iris, A.L. Lester, K.L. Noone, and Amy Spector. They comprise five MM romance novellas featuring being naked in a garden somehow, somewhere, to mark World Naked Gardening Day on the first Saturday of May. Contains the stories: Perfect Rows by Holly Day: Everything would've been perfect if Grayson hadn't been forced to share his garden with Cam. Grayson wants to grow vegetables, and he has a plan for how to do it. Cam loves flowers in perfect rows, but Grayson is incapable of growing things in lines. Most days end in conflict, at least until Grayson realizes he can shut Cam up by kissing him. But will they ever be able to agree about the garden? Strike a Pose by Nell Iris: Didrik would do anything for his BFF Filip, including taking naked pictures for a charity calendar of his dad Johan, the stunning man responsible for Didrik’s gay awakening. Now a widower, Johan is ready to move on. As they start the project, the attraction between them grows. Their connection is easy, but not without challenges. Will they get their happily ever after? The Death of Digby Catch by Amy Spector: When August Catch arrives at the Arachne’s Loom estate to collect his late Uncle Digby’s things, he is thrown together with Theo Webb, the heir to the Webb family fortune. The attraction is instant. When Theo begins to suspect Digby may have been murdered, he and August will need to work together to discover the killer, and not let the thing growing between them be a distraction. The Hermit of Aldershill Manor by K.L. Noone: Charlie’s ready to start a new job and life at Aldershill Manor. As a historian, he’s thrilled to dive into the archives. And he can run from a messy break-up. And explore lovely gardens, too. Lionel does not like tourists, conversations, or social niceties. But he loves his job: helping beauty grow. When he finds the new historian caught in a storm, he offers shelter, which might bloom into more. Warning! Deep Water by A.L. Lester: Spring 1947. England has just come through the worst winter in living memory. Peter’s been drifting since he left the army a year ago. George is lonely, despite the busy horticultural nursery he owns. Peter’s decision to take a swim in the irrigation tank presents them both with the chance to reach out and help each other. Can two misfits find a way to fit together with someone after all?
Word Count: 151000
Character Identities: Gay, Non Binary
Summary: Queer British Lovecraftian historical romantic suspense set in 1920s London. Lew Tyler is dragged from 2016 to 1920 by an accident with border magic whilst he’s searching for his missing friend. He’s struggling to get to grips with life a century before he was born. Detective Alec Carter is trying to solve gruesome murders in his patch of London, weighed down with exhaustion and a jaded attitude to most of his fellow humans after four years of war. In the middle of a murder investigation that involves wild magic, mysterious creatures and illegal sexual desire, will Alec and Lew work out who is safe to trust? Sergeant Will Grant, Alec’s right-hand man, is drawn to the mysterious Fenn. Is Fenn a man or a woman? Does Will care? And Fenn…Fenn has a secret. They live beyond the border between 1920s London and the magical Outlands and they need to get home. Are they prepared to achieve that by double crossing Alec, Will and Lew? Two couples hold the fabric of reality in their hands. Will it make them or break them? Buy London Calling now if you like murder, time-travel, grumpy detectives, the blues, magic, gay romance, m/enby romance, tea and not-quite-elves. It features Lost in Time, Shadows on the Border & The Hunted and the Hind (which are also available in audio and on sale at Authors Direct!) "Wow, what a read… time-travel, fantasy, murder, MM-romance… everything I like, rolled in to one!"
Word Count: 10500
Character Identities: Lesbian
Summary: For all the Celtic Myth short stories, see my website. Melinda is staying on Lindisfarne for a Christmas break with her old friend when an unexpected argument leaves her alone for the holiday. It's the first Christmas since her mother died and the island's peace and wild tranquillity bring balm to her wounded heart. Two chance meetings, first with a pair of wary otters and then with cafe-owner Rowan, bring her genuine joy. Will her tentative relationship with Rowan survive the end of her holiday and the turning of the year? A short sapphic Christmas story. With otters.
Word Count: 50,100
Character Identities: Ace, Bisexual, Gay, Pansexual, Transgender
Summary: Village nurse Walter Kennett is content with his makeshift found-family in tiny Bradfield. However one midsummer morning a body is found floating in the village duck pond, dead by magical means. Detective Simon Frost arrives in Bradfield to investigate a inexplicable murder. The evidence seems to point to Lucille Hall-Bridges, who lives with doctor Sylvia Marks and nurse Walter Kennett at Courtfield House. Simon isn’t happy—he doesn’t believe Lucy is a murderer but he’s sure the three of them are hiding something. In the meantime, the draw he feels toward Walter takes him by surprise. Walter is in a dilemma, concealing Sylvia and Lucy’s relationship and not knowing how much to tell Frost about the paranormal possibilities of the murder. He isn’t interested in going to bed with anyone—he’s got a complicated life and has to know someone really well before he falls between the sheets. He’s taken aback by his own attraction to Detective Frost and angry when Frost appears to twist the spark between them to something transactional in nature. Will Walter be satisfied to stay on the periphery of Lucy and Sylvia’s love affair, a welcome friend but never quite included? Or is it time for him to strike out and embark on a relationship of his own? The second in the Bradfield trilogy, set in the Border Magic universe.
Word Count: 50,100
Character Identities: Lesbian, Pansexual
Summary: The quiet village of Bradfield should offer Dr Sylvia Marks the refuge she seeks when she returns home from her time in a field hospital in France in 1918. However, she is still haunted by the disappearance of her ambulance-driver lover two years previously ,and settling down as a village doctor is more difficult than she realised it would be after the excitement of front-line medicine. Then curious events at a local farm, mysterious lights and a hallucinating patient’s strange illness make her revisit her assessment of Anna’s death on the battlefield. Lucille Hall-Bridges is at a loose end now her nursing work is finished. She felt useful as a nurse and now she really doesn’t know what to do with her life. She hopes going to stay with her friend Sylvia for a while will help her find a way forward. And if that involves staying at Bradfield with Sylvia…then that’s fine with her. Will the arrival of Lucy at Bradfield be the catalyst that allows both women to lay their wartime stresses to rest? Can Sylvia move on from her love affair with Anna and find happiness with Lucy, or is she still too entwined in the unresolved endings of the past? The first in the Bradfield trilogy, set in the Border Magic universe. See all the books on my website. CW: Mention of domestic violence.
Word Count: 14000
Character Identities: Gay, Transgender
Summary: Gwyn Mabler is on secondment at The Kings of Ireland Hotel at Tara. He and his brother, Brân are in the process of buying the place and Gwyn is getting to grips with the everyday running by shadowing the current owner, Mal Reagan. Gwyn’s an idiot, though. Mal made it clear from the start he’d like to get Gwyn in his bed and after a couple of weeks of pursuit, Gwyn gave in. Mal was hot and pushy and just the kind of dangerous to pique Gwyn’s interest. He honestly thought Mal knew he was trans. Since that horrible night, Mal has had Gwyn ‘work-shadowing’ Chef in the deeply unhappy kitchen. He doesn’t want to go home and make a fuss that might cause the sale to fall through, but when a huge row breaks out over a flour delivery and Mal backhands Gwyn across the face, he finally decides enough is enough. With the help of Darren Starling, one of the line-cooks with whom he’s formed a tentative friendship, he leaves. During the two-day journey home, from the middle of Ireland to Wales, they have plenty of time to exchange confidences. Could the delicate pull of attraction between them grow into something stronger? Is it safe for Gwyn to out himself to Darren? Will Darren want to go out with a trans guy? And how will his brother Brân take Gwyn’s arrival home with a stranger? A 14,000 word short story in the Contemporary Celtic Myths collection. For the growing number of short stories, see my website.
Word Count: Information not available
Character Identities: Gay
Summary: For all the Celtic Myth short stories, see my website. Paul Webster has come out the army after a twenty-two year stretch with a trick hip and no idea what to do with his life. He takes a few weeks walking along the Welsh coast to get his head on straight. Kevin Davies is a veterinary nurse and an artist. He’s getting lonelier and lonelier in his cottage on the edge of the sea, kept company by his cats and a friendly flock of crows. What happens when the two men hunker down together to wait out a wild March gale? A 11,500-word short story in the Reworked Celtic Myths collection. This time, there are crows.
Word Count: Information not available
Character Identities: Information not available
Summary: It’s the summer of 1967 and the Sexual Offences Act has just decriminalized consensual gay sex in private between two men over twenty-one. Percy Wright and his friend Les Baker have both taken temporary jobs teaching English as a foreign language in London during their long summer break from teaching at a rural boarding school near Oxford. Percy is keen to soak up some theatre, music, and general culture, whilst Les is also keen to experience the varied gay social scene. When Les picks up a man called Phil at the box office of the Albert Hall when he goes to buy tickets to a Promenade Concert, Percy inadvertently gets thrown together with Adrian Framlingham, Phil’s friend. Adrian is all the things Percy likes in a man — funny, kind and steady. When Les gets hurt, Percy turns to Adrian for support, but as the end of the summer looms it seems as if their affair will come to a natural end. What will happen when Percy goes back to his everyday life as a house-master? Will he and Adrian stay in touch? Does he even want a long-distance relationship when arranging to meet someone for sex is still illegal, even if the act itself is not? Trigger warning: A secondary character suffers an off-screen sexual assault.
Word Count: Information not available
Character Identities: Gay
Summary: It's 1972. Fifteen years ago, teenage Laurie Henshaw came to live at Webber’s Farm with his elderly uncle and settled in to the farming life. Now, age thirty-two, he has a stroke in the middle of working on the farm. As he recovers, he has to come to terms with the fact that some of his new limitations are permanent and he’s never going to be as active as he used to be. Will he be able to accept the helping hands his friends extend to him? With twenty successful years in the City behind him, Phil McManus is hiding in the country after his boyfriend set him up to take the fall for an insider trading deal at his London stockbroking firm. There’s not enough evidence to prosecute anyone, but not enough to clear him either. He can’t bear the idea of continuing his old stagnating life in the city, or going back to his job now everyone knows he’s gay. Thrown together in a small country village, can Phil and Laurie forge a new life that suits the two of them and the makeshift family that gathers round them? Or are they too tied up in their own shortcomings to recognise what they have? A stand-alone 1970s historical gay romance. Cross over characters with Eight Acts.
Word Count: Information not available
Character Identities: Gay
Summary: Now in audio! $1.99 at Authors Direct. It’s 1919. Matty returns home to the family farm from the trenches only to find his brother Arthur dying of an unknown illness. The local doctor thinks cancer, but Matty becomes convinced it's connected to the mysterious books his brother left strewn around the house. Rob knows something other than just Arthur’s death is bothering Matty. He’s know him for years and been in love with him just as long. And when he finds something that looks like a gate, a glowing, terrifying doorway to the unknown, it all starts to fall in to place. Matty’s looking sicker and sicker in the same way Arthur did. What is Rob prepared to sacrifice to save him? The answer is in the esoteric books…and with the mysterious Lin of the Frem, who lives beyond the gate to nowhere. It’s taken Matty and Rob more than a decade to admit they have feelings for each other and they are determined that neither social expectations or magical illness will part them now. A stand-alone 35k novella set in the Border Magic Universe (formerly the Lost in Time Universe). You can read about the universe and all the books here.
Word Count: 50000
Character Identities: Ace, Bisexual, Demisexual, Genderfluid, Genderqueer, Lesbian, Non Binary, Pansexual
Summary: Now in Audible! Jones is determined to find out what caused the unexpected death of her father whilst they were exploring ancient ruins in the Himalayas. Along with a stack of books and coded journals, he's left her with the promise she'll travel back to England for the first time since childhood and try being the lady she's never been. Edie and her brother are leaving soon on a journey to the Himalayas to document and collect plants for the new Kew Gardens when she befriends Miss Jones in London. She's never left England before and is delighted to learn the lady will be returning to the mountains she calls home at the same time they are planning their travels. When they meet again in Srinagar, Edie is surprised to find that, out here, the Miss Jones of the London salons is "just Jones" the explorer, clad in breeches and boots and unconcerned with the proprieties Edie has been brought up to respect. The non-binary explorer and the determined botanist make the long journey over the high mountain passes to Little Tibet, collecting flowers and exploring ruins on the way. Will Jones discover the root of the mysterious deaths of her parents? Will she confide in Edie and allow her to help in the quest? The trip is fraught with dangers for both of them, not least those of the heart. Part of the Border Magic Universe (formerly the Lost in Time Universe) set in 1780. With magic, monsters and incidental botany. You can read about the universe and all the books here.
Word Count: 54000
Character Identities: Gay
Summary: Gruesome murders taking place across 1920s London draw Lew and Alec together through the desolation of the East End and the smoky music clubs of Soho. They both have secrets that could get them arrested or killed. In the middle of a murder investigation that involves wild magic, mysterious creatures and illegal sexual desire, who is safe to trust? Not Lew, who is struggling to get to grips with life a century before he was born. Or Alec, who wants Lew in his bed, despite liking him for murder. The first in the Lost in Time 1920s London trilogy, gathered together in the London Calling Box Set. Buy Lost in Time in Audio (99c at Chirp, Apple, B&N and Spotify).
