Radical Love

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Radical love is the story of John Church, a preacher - and a gay man living in London in the early 1800’s. It’s hard to know what to mention here as I think the point to the narrative of this book is that we uncover a lot about John on the way. John is our narrator throughout the story - but his accounts are not always factual. He isn’t all he suggests. He preaches of acceptance and love at The Obelisk, his radical church in London, where he meets and falls in love with Ned. And the great plan? To replace Carr with a creature of their own choosing in the king's bed. Bacon uses his network of spies to find a suitable candidate but stumbles across George Villiers, a twenty year old lad from Leicestershire who is perfect - in every way. Bacon himself prefers a more rugged man to pleasure himself with, so when he realises he is attracted to the pretty strawberry blond boy, it can only lead to trouble. Ned was amazing - a man who had spent his childhood in slavery and still fully believes in tolerance and love despite his deep resentment of a world that has tried to repeatedly control him. He tries to open Johns eyes, expand his world view by making him confront his own privileges and biases. He was a beautiful man, finding himself in a world that told him who he is, and learning how to set a boundary for the first time. An absolutely brilliant work of historical fiction - I was hooked by the premise of the Vere Street Coterie and the story being built around the sources and testimony available from the event. I loved how much of a feature that the court case documents and press coverage from the time were in the creation of this story.

character study...(Church's) psychic damage and emotional blinkers render him terribly, compellingly real." Daily MailFor me, it's Bacon's narration that makes the book: he's crude and coarse, he's clever and vain, he's aware that he's surrounded by enemies, and he's on a mission to plot his way to the top while taking down his detractors, especially the Howard family. Along the way, he has more than one eye on our present with sneaking asides about how lying and deceit are no longer flaws in public servants and Westminster rulers, on how greed and ambition rule and the wealthy continue to prop up their ascendency; an especially funny diatribe on how a nascent system of 'medicines everywhere, in every town, in every village, ready to be used at any moment, a national service' is bound to be stymied by questions of 'where was the money for such a scheme?' King James might have just spent a fortune from the public purse on jewels for his favourites but 'not a single Member of Parliament (save perhaps me) was going to pay to stop injured peasants dying of blood poisoning'. I know pretty much zero about this time period (early 17th century), other than that I watched the fairly terrible show Reign, which was about King James VI and I's mother, who pretty much everyone knows, Mary Queen of Scots. And while I knew a lot of the names in this book, I had no idea what to expect, despite it being somewhat historically accurate. The kingdom of love is a frightening place. A dangerous place. What kind of fool wants to live there?

Witty, original and clever, this tale of Jacobean power and lust is a blast' THE TIMES, Best Historical Fiction of the Year

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In this book, we follow the life and loves of a priest who agrees to host wedding ceremonies for the Molly house workers and attendees, and his romances. Francis Bacon, known as the cleverest man in England, finds himself in a threatening position. King James I is unpredictable and is being influenced by his lover Robert Carr, who is an enemy of Francis. Now, Francis needs to concoct a new plan, so he doesn’t end up at the Tower. world of a gay molly house on Vere Street, where ordinary men reinvent themselves as funny, flirtatious drag queens and rent boys cavort with labourers and princes alike. There, Church becomes the I will say that there is some excellent critiques that are unfortunately very applicable to today's society, around LGBTQIA+ rights and acceptance. There were also questions about what it means to be radical and who gets to call themselves radical and what actions are considered radical. It's something that I have thought of myself, not necessarily as a radical, but as someone who is very left leaning and active within social justice movements.

their relationship though? not the sweet gay romance I expected it to be. church is a very manipulative and controlling individual, who constantly pushes neds boundaries and fails to consider the dangers of not only being gay but also a person of colour. Ned specifically states he does not wish to have sex, so church puts him in a situation where he knows he will give in. Ned states he does not wish to go to the molly house, so church leads him there under false pretences and pressure him into going inside. Ned breaks up with church, so church begins to stalk him, waiting on his street for days just to get a glimpse of him, sending him countless amount of letters that change from romantic declarations of love to violent rages centred around betrayal. I was staggered by this book; one of the boldest novelistic explorations of desire I have read in some time’ Keiran Goddard, author of Hourglass chapel. The two bond over their broken childhoods, and Church falls obsessively in love with Ned's tender nature. In a fragile, colourful secret world under threat, Church's love for Ned takes him toBut will John realise that yes his intentions are good, he simply cannot expect those who grow close to him to give up everything at the simple promise of his affections, or will his own delusions cast him out? TW: homophobia, racism, rape, child abusers, violence, transphobia, death penalty, slavery and more. slavery, marred by oppression and social injustice. Don't look for heroes here - look for life as it's really lived, people as they really are.' The characters were clearly researched with lots of care and attention - and they were the driving force of this story - their loves, their passions, their desires, their connections were blinding beautiful. John was complex - a foundling, cast out as a baby and now trying to fight for the rights of him and his friends. He saw beauty in the world despite how much it had hurt him, telling us stories of the past and dreaming about the future, talking to us and musing in a lyrical, poetic style that was immersive and descriptive. His voice was reflective of the time period, but still easy to understand with a level of relatability despite it being centuries ago. John was one of our heros, but he isn't a hero to many - he was flawed, obsessive, impulsive, controlling. He is the perfect example of the idea that nobody is entirely good or bad, and he creates a strange kind of kinship with the reader.