Beloved Ghost
Fiona Graph
Paperback
Theo and Zac survive World War II and commit to a life together – but will the discrimination they face destroy their relationship?
First edition
- ISBN 9781800422117
- Published May 2022
- Paperback
203 x 127mm (294 pages)
‘People have died because they’re queer. This isn't some philosophical debate, Teddy – it's our lives.’
Theo Lawder and Zac Bonneval meet in the army at the outbreak of World War II. They survive the horror of Dunkirk and become lovers. Theo goes to work at Bletchley Park, where he becomes friendly with Alan Turing. After the war he joins the Foreign Office, while Zac works for MI6. They make a good life together. But this is a time when homosexuals are criminalised, and the pressure of being outcasts in society takes a terrible toll. Zac becomes deeply depressed and goes away. Can their love survive society’s hatred?
This book is also available on Kindle.
Fiona Graph was born in Sydney. Once she had obtained a degree in Psychology and Ancient History, she travelled before settling in north London. She worked variously as a psychologist, for an LGB organisation and as a librarian, before ending up at the Foreign Office. Her youthful interest in writing came back strongly about seven years ago.
Things that Bounded, published in October 2020, was her first novel. Her second novel,
Beloved Ghost, came out in May 2022.
"… you’ll absolutely fall in love with this book. It’s so beautifully written and its pages hold the most beautiful love story, told in a time when their love was forbidden, hidden and condemned … 5 stars” - You can read the full review
here -
Stacey Hammond (Instagram handle: @staceywh_17)
"
Beloved Ghost is about love, the daily minutiae of being a couple and the love of two men for each other ... The drama is not big and flashy, it is subtle and rooted in their individual characters. I felt a desperate need for their love to survive … all the gay men of that period … paid a terrible price for just being themselves. It pays homage to their bravery, the important part they played in both the war and after ... It is a tale of despair and pain, but also hope and courage.” You can read the full review
here -
Susan, author of 'booksaremycwtches.wordpress.com'
"I thoroughly enjoyed Fiona Graph’s first novel
Things That Bounded because of the wonderfully detailed historical context she wove around her story. Here she does the same … I love how Fiona Graph creates her characters, then uses them to drive the story forward … The author’s setting was beautifully evoked and I felt firmly in the mid–20th Century. I felt the most important thing Graph succeeds in doing is to show us, through these characters, the experience of so many men who were vilified and criminalised … They feel wholly real and I was so involved with their emotional journey that I almost expected to look up from my book and see them there … There’s something hopeful and uplifting about their courage and their enduring love for each other”. Full review
here -
Hayley Baxter, author of 'welcome-to-the-lotus-readers-blog'
"There is something special about love in the face of adversity, but it takes skill and nuance to tell such a story in a way that it touches you without falling into clichés … Heart-breaking. Inspiring. Beautiful.” You can read the full review
here -
Silvia, author of 'bookafterbook.blogspot.com'
‘Beloved Ghost is a beautiful love story, but it is so much more than that too. The backdrop to the tale, of the oppression meted out to ordinary queer Britons in the middle of the twentieth century, has been painstakingly researched and woven in to such powerful effect. Fiona Graph evokes the sights, smells and sounds of postwar life with great sensitivity and understanding, affording the reader a real and immersive sense of time travel. She has an eye and ear not just for the great sweeping events in the headlines, but also for the tiny details and intensely personal ways in which they play out. At a time when so much recent progress appears to be in danger of being undone, this is not just a great read, a tale of hope and courage, but a vital and moving clarion call too. We can never take our rights for granted’ - Mike Parker, author of the award-winning ‘On the Red Hill’
‘Fiona Graph's ambitious queer tale shows how gay lives helped shape the last century, and how these lives were also shaped, for better or worse, by changing attitudes. It renders an enjoyable, intimate and moving view of the shifting sands of culture’ - Joseph Galliano, co-founder, Queer Britain
"This is the second novel by this author, and I think she will be a writer to watch in the future. It is a love story between two very well drawn male protagonists who lived at a time when homosexual relationships were illegal … The attitudes, prejudices and consequences of this period of British history are very well expressed, and exposed, by the author … The cameo appearances of real-life people (Alan Turing and Guy Burgess, for instance) bring a sense of heightened reality to the narrative, leading a reader to believe that Theo and Zac did exist … When fiction can be made to feel like reality, then the writer is doing a good job.” – Read the full review
here –
Anne Holt for Discovering Diamonds
“If you’re thinking of self-publishing, I hope you don't go at it alone. With a team like SilverWood behind you, you have the support you need to publish the best work you believe in.”
J A Higgins
