Belle Nash and the Bath Circus

Back in England after four years' banishment in the Caribbean, Belle Nash tries to help Pablo Fanque, the black bare-back rider from Norfolk who longs to start his own circus, only to be thwarted by the hated Lord Servitude, a die-hard advocate of slavery. Set in 1835, William Keeling's second novel in The Gay Street Chronicles series balances a satire on the manners of the English with a stern morality tale about bigotry and racism. In 1835, when gay hero Bellerophon ?Belle? Nash returns to Bath, in the west of England, after four years of forced exile in the Caribbean, he is a much changed man. Responsible for freeing the slaves on his aunt's former estate in Grenada, Beau Nash's grandson has seen the worst indignities that can be inflicted on fellow human beings and now finds himself, in Bath, at odds with one of slavery's worst offenders. He has left behind a new love, too, and wants to believe that a semblance of that love can be recreated in England. For a while, a surrogate love affair with a would-be circus entrepreneur from Norfolk seems to satisfy him. But conflicts of interest reveal hard truths that cannot be wished away. Others may also prove better placed to right the wrongs that most trouble him. Can Belle survive the challenge? AUTHOR: William Keeling is the former foreign correspondent for the Financial Times who exposed a multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal in Nigeria, and then had to flee for his life. He eventually left journalism for the safer world of chocolate, becoming co-owner of the historic chocolate company Prestat, but is still plotting his return to the true home of jollof rice. William lives and writes in Somerset, in the beautiful west of England. Belle Nash and the Bath Circus is the second in what will be a five-part series.