This week, Passing Through went on Kindle Unlimited for a 90 day cycle, so as I’m spreading the word and thinking about the book and what it means to me I decided to blog about it.
Passing Through has a very special place in my heart because it was written for my father, although he never really knew it. I wrote it when I knew he was dying, and ended up editing and publishing it after his death. It was a deeply cathartic experience for me. It was part of my grieving process and helped me to make sense of my loss, and of the cycle of life and death, loss and renewal. It was a labour of love, and a journey to some kind of acceptance.
Edwin was indirectly inspired by my father. Although they differ in many ways, there is a core of similarity in their kindness and their capacity for love. Edwin’s relationship with Leo as a boy was based on some of my own happy childhood memories: of holidays by the sea, of learning to swim, and sail, and climb and the thrilling freedom of those pursuits.
I’m an atheist, so I don’t have any belief in a god/goddess or afterlife. I believe that all we get is the here and now, and the only way we can live on is through the people we love, the people we teach or help in some way, and the people we inspire. In Passing Through, Edwin helps Leo and Tris to find happiness. He isn’t there to see them get their happy ending, but he lives on – through their love and the fact that he helped them find and keep each other.
I like to believe that my father lives on in me, in the values he instilled in me, the skills he taught me. It seems very fitting that my love of books began with him. He taught me to read as a pre-schooler because he figured if I kept waking him at 5:00 a.m. he might as well do something useful with that time 🙂
This is why Passing Through was dedicated to my dad:
February 20th 2015, Jaybird Press
Don’t waste a chance at happiness…
Leo is a lonely workaholic with no time for romance in his life. His job in London takes all his energy and commitment. When he goes to Cornwall to stay with his terminally ill uncle, Edwin, love is the last thing Leo expects to find.
Tris lives in a cottage on Edwin’s land. Gay, but still half in the closet, he and Leo bond over their affection for Edwin, and the pull of attraction between them proves too strong to ignore. In Tris’s arms, in the wilds of Cornwall, Leo finds a peace he’d forgotten existed.
On his return to London, Leo finds himself grieving for more than just the loss of his uncle. When some unexpected news gives Leo the chance to return to Cornwall, he’s afraid it will be too late to rekindle things with Tris. But having learned much from his stay with his uncle, Leo doesn’t want to look back and wish he’d done things differently.
It’s time to seize the day—if it’s not already too late.
Length: 43,000 words
Cover art by Garrett Leigh
Buy Links:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Universal Amazon link:myBook.to/PassingThrough_JayN
N.B. This ebook is currently exclusive to Amazon and is available on Kindle Unlimited.
Also available in paperback and audiobook.