Audiobooks by Neil Blackmore

The Dangerous Kingdom of Love

Brought to you by Penguin. England, 1613. At the dazzling but brutal court of King James I, politician and philosopher Francis Bacon, the cleverest person in England, the inventor of the modern world, has a fight to survive. A life-threatening alliance of his enemies has formed around the King's exquisite but noxious lover, Carr. Bacon, always the outsider and the plotter, goes to his friend, James's neglected Queen, and together they come up with a plan. They will find their own beautiful young man, to supplant Carr in the King's bed and so defeat their enemies. Bacon then meets the thrillingly beautiful, mysteriously unreadable Villiers, whom he trains to entrance the King, but against all good sense, the two start a secret love affair. But when a shocking murder scandal rocks the English court, new battle lines are drawn at court, and the question asked: what if the beautiful boy is the cleverest person of all? A twisting tale of court intrigue and forbidden love in the palaces, taverns and theatres of Jacobean London, with a cast of kings and queens, philosophers and playwrights, high-born aristocrats and low-born poisoners, and an astonishing suite of historical characters like Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare, James I and Anne of Denmark, the murderess Frances Carr and even Pocahontas, all told through the funny, ironic, self-aware voice of the world-changing Francis Bacon himself, THE DANGEROUS KINGDOM OF LOVE is both a darkly funny satire on liberalism and a tragic love story about the corrosive effect of power. © Neil Blackmore 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Neil Blackmore (Author), Philip Stevens (Narrator)

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The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle

Brought to you by Penguin. ‘Seductive, decadent, cruel and utterly thrilling – just like Horace Lavelle himself. This is The Talented Mr Ripley for the twenty-first century.’ Emma Flint, author of Little Deaths 'Wildly entertaining and painfully heartbreaking … Neil Blackmore writes with a fizzy wit that bounds his characters off the page.' Ben Aldridge When Benjamin and Edgar Bowen embark on a Grand Tour of Europe, they are ready to meet People of Quality. They have trunks full of powdered silver wigs and matching suits, a hunger to experience the architectural wonders of Ancient Rome and an ability to quote Voltaire (at length). They will make connections and establish themselves in high society, just as their mother has planned. But it soon becomes apparent that their outfits are not quite the right shade of grey, their smiles are too ready, their appreciation of the arts ridiculous. Class, they learn, is not something that can be studied. Benjamin’s true education begins when he meets Horace Lavelle. Beautiful, charismatic, seductive, Lavelle delights in skewering the pretensions and prejudices of their milieu. He consumes Benjamin’s every thought. Love can transform a person. Can it save them? © Neil Blackmore 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Neil Blackmore (Author), Ben Aldridge (Narrator)

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