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The novels

Before the Letters, there were novels. The same questions, at the length of a book.

I left a career to write the first of these. By the end I was selling furniture to buy food, and I am not sure I had ever been happier. Each one, in its own way, is about people moving inside limits someone else has drawn for them, and what it costs to notice.

Cover of The Masterful Manipulation of George Cove by Gerry Cryer

Novel. 2013

The Masterful Manipulation of George Cove

Twenty years after they last met, George Cove's old Oxford tutor sits down and tells him the story of his own life. His education, his work, where he lived, who he loved and who he lost: all of it, she explains, was arranged by a British spymaster called Bill Familiant, building agents who could never know they had been chosen. The Cold War thread runs from Poland and Ukraine all the way to Chernobyl in 1986.

It is a spy novel. It is also the first time I tried to write about the question I have been asking ever since: how much of the life you think you chose was actually chosen for you?

The opposite of freedom is submission. By saying nothing, and doing nothing, we have chosen to be submissive to these dominant people.

Reached the top 300 in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, 2014.
Paperback, 308 pages. Brovary Ltd. ISBN 978-0992721312

“Along the way there are important issues about destiny and complicity, personal identity and responsibility.” Amazon reader review

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Cover of Maran Avdoniy by Gerry Cryer

Thriller. 2017

Maran Avdoniy

A body is found in the passenger seat of a car in the early hours, and DCI Paul Catchpole expects a short case and a long sleep. Instead the trail leads to Maran Avdoniy, a Ukrainian gun runner and trafficker already hunted by Robbie Noakes of MI6. Catchpole follows him from London to Ukraine and Dubai, resenting every step he is made to take on someone else's behalf.

Kindle edition, 315 pages. Brovary.

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Cover of Blah Blah by Gerry Cryer

Comic novel. 2014. For adult readers

Blah Blah

Tommy catches the train from Faversham before dawn, five days a week, to a life that looks like success from the outside and feels like nothing from the inside. He has plenty to say and no one listening, so he lives in his head instead, in a private world of desire, fantasy and adventure. Then he meets a young woman on the run, and for once there is someone to save.

It is written for anyone in the middle of life who has quietly wondered whether it has passed them by. Funny, frank, and not for children. By the end you may not be sure whether any of it really happened, or whether Tommy dreamed it. Neither am I.

Paperback, 320 pages. Brovary Limited. ISBN 978-0992721343

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Cover of Alexandra, a collection of subtly sensual fantasies

Co-written. 2017. For adult readers

Alexandra

Alexandra, with Gerry Cryer

More than fifty women's sensual fantasies, gathered by a Ukrainian psychologist from friends, from clients, and from her own imagination. It is frank, and meant to be.

Underneath, it is a book about permission. Permission for women to know what they want, to say it out loud, and to feel no need to apologise for either. It was written for women. Men may find they learn more from it.

Kindle edition, 321 pages. Brovary Ltd.

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In progress

Dear Vlod, Best Vlad

Two men who will never meet, writing to each other from 24 February 2022. Darkly funny on the surface, and entirely serious underneath.

The novel will be finished when the war ends. If you would like to hear when it is, the Letters below are where I will say so first.

This is not a subscription. It is an invitation.

There is no schedule built to hold your attention, and nothing to keep up with. The Letters arrive when they are ready, usually every couple of weeks. Read them when you have time, ignore them when you do not, and leave the moment they stop being useful. Free, always.

One email to confirm, then the Letters. Nothing else.