Ash is “a muted thing” and hasn’t felt much of anything since he was discharged. Two things amaze Ash about the want he feels. Much to his dismay, Ash is attracted to this ludicrous person. His dark hair gleamed with product and had been painstakingly teased into a quiff that defied taste, reason, and gravity. A vulgar, glittering pirate of a man, all jewellery and fake tan, gold glinting in his ears, on his fingers and round his wrists. He mocks everyone including himself and when he sees Darian dancing at a gay bar in Essex (Ash, who never leaves his apartment if he doesn’t have to, is there for a friend’s stag party he was unable to avoid), he labels him as a risible rube. He is also an intellectual from Britain’s upper class (he’s a Cambridge grad), a successful writer, wealthy enough to never worry about money, and a snob. Ash is seriously mentally ill and is recovering from a fairly recent psychotic breakdown. The narrator of Glitterland is Ash Winters and he is not a nice man. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this summer and, I think, the best debut novel of the year thus far. Glitterland is a romance, complete with compelling leads, steamy love scenes, and a hard-won Happy For Now ending. I think you’ll be impressed.” (This is clearly a better response than calling someone a judgmental prat.) The next time someone sniffs derisively at romance novels, rather than roll my eyes and pray for patience, I plan to say, “Ah, I see you haven’t read Glitterland. The language he uses – his metaphors are often show stoppingly gorgeous – and his narrator, a bipolar depressive – beg to be read by those who dismiss genre fiction as lowly. Can a man who doesn't trust himself ever trust in happiness? And how can someone who doesn't believe in happiness ever fight for his own?Īlexis Hall's iconic Glitterland has been revised and expanded, with extensive bonus content and a stunning new cover by Elizabeth Turner Stokes.It would be easy label Alexis Hall’s debut novel Glitterland as literary fiction masquerading as romance. But Ash has been living in his own shadow for so long that he can no longer see a way out. Flashy and loud, radiant and full of life, Darian couldn't be more different.and yet he makes Ash laugh, reminding him of what it's like to step beyond the boundaries of his anxiety.
Then a chance encounter throws him into the path of Essex-born Darian Taylor. He lives his life between the cycles of his illness, haunted by the ghosts of other people's expectations.
Once the golden boy of the English literary scene, now a clinically depressed writer of pulp crime fiction, Ash Winters has given up on hope, happiness, and-most of all-himself. From the acclaimed author of BOYFRIEND MATERIAL comes a deeply emotional romance about heartbreak, hope, and learning to love against all the odds.
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