The Wyld Dreamers

The Wyld Dreamers is the name of my second novel being published later this autumn. It's set in the hedonistic 1970s when charismatic fashion photographer and bon viveur, Seymour Stratton wants to create an artists’ colony on his crumbling but beautiful Somerset farm. Recruiting his son’s friends fresh from University to renovate a dilapidated cottage, he has an affair with one of them, Amy Taylor. She falls in love with the rural idyll and dreams of life as a hippy in the hills. But between the drugs and the dancing, the fantasy and fun, their worlds collide and shatter.

I lived on a Somerset farm in the 1970s with a group of friends. That's me in the photo. Friends are concerned they will find themselves described within the pages. They can rest easy. The Wyld Dreamers uses only the mood and music of that time rather than specific characters or events. And something that I learnt there. That though it's impossible to imagine anything positive can result from chaos and confusion, sometimes it does. Paraphrasing the words of a song you'll recognise; 'You can't always get what you want ....but you might find, you get what you need....'

The Wyld Dreamers is published by Urbane on 11th October 2018.