romance I'll Kiss You in the Rain

[William King]

Absolute Beginners is the title for a series of books which tell the story of Alex and Matty, of their friends and family, those others around them, and the people whose paths they cross.

The first book in the series is titled I’ll Kiss You in the Rain. Alex, the principal character who narrates the story is a gay teenager who hides his real self until he discovers his best friend is gay. The idea for the story of Matty and Alex's relationship came from the first chapter, originally just a short story about two best friends who reveal to each other that they are gay. 

As the novel builds and introduces other characters, we meet Jake, an older guy who hits on Alex. There are other things going on in the background concerning Alex's group of school friends, but the main storyline is the interplay between Alex, Jake, and Matty. 

Matty looked up at me, caught my eyes, "I know."

I was shocked, how could he know? Is that why he needed to see me? Is it over between us? With that last thought I felt a pang of emotion in my chest. If it was over, if it was over... I had no answer for myself. I felt sick, that feeling of butterflies in the stomach. He didn't wait for me to reply, but continued, "Brandon came to see me, to make sure I hadn't said anything about the watches. He had no idea I was gay or that you and I were anything more than best friends. Anyway it all came out, Jonathan, Jake, you."

"Do you hate me?"

This is a revised second edition, the book was first published in 2016 and received some favourable comments:

As for the story over all, well done! It challenged the usual thinking of a story like this. Alex was a good kid with flaws. He got himself into circumstances that were way over his head, and he kind of got lost for a while, but he owned up to his mistakes and is a better person for it. Jake and Jonathan sullied the waters for each other. Alex walked into the middle of a complicated relationship and got caught in the middle of their lovers' quarrel. They prove that you can love somebody and not really like them for a while. Matty surprised me in a good way. He didn't interest me early in the story and it took a while for me to warm up to him. But he did warm up in the last half of the story and proved to have more depth than just being the happy, innocent, perfect love interest. He grew on me as the story progressed.

I really liked this story.

All my stories contain elements of personal experience, I don't think they would be real if they did not. The most extraordinary thing about writing this book is the character development, the way in which the characters took on a life of their own and lived. I have confined the story limits by giving attention and detail to the three principle characters, but if that were not the case, any of the characters could be developed, but of course that would tell a different story.

I hope you like this story, and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I’ll Kiss You in the Rain will begin publishing here on Saturday 17 November.