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I'm really not sure what to say. I loved your story, I thought it was beautiful and heartfelt, and absolutely wonderful. I have myself felt so many of the emotions you described, the pain and the joy of loving another boy. I wish I had read this then, it might have made it a little easier to cope. Anyway, I think you have done a marvellous job. Thank you so very much for sharing this.

I found C+N a few weeks ago and immediately realised it was a cut above the rest of the fiction [of this genre]. I've waited avidly for each chapter since then and after having an enjoyable half hour reading chapter 20 this morning and it being the last of the volume id thought id drop u a line and express my appreciation for writing C+N.

I really like the fact it is a UK story (I live in the UK by the way) and is written with an excellent understanding not only of the way UK teens think but also how they live. I felt a lot of the insignificant detail was so true that it made the story really realistic and alive. I feel as though I know Chris and Nigel rather than just follow the events of a story. I'm glad you're going to write another volume. My heart drooped when I read the words "last chapter" until I finished reading the last paragraph of chapter 20. (coz I hate inconclusive endings :-) even if they are real life)

Anyway I was interested in your idea to leave an age gap. I think this would be good and bad. On the one hand there's only so much domestic ritual an interesting story can take before needing a "change" to refresh it (i.e. an age jump). On the other the domestic ritual so far in C+N has been one of its most appealing aspects for me - it gives great realism. My opinion would be that it depends on how far your going to take C+N - Id love to follow them through 6th form and even to university but I'm also aware how much work that would be at the current days per chapter rate!!! I often think jumps in a story work well when there's some good narration on important events within the jump and some reflection back to the jump in the resumed story . That's only my opinion of course. Anyway I'm aware I'm writing an essay and giving out far too many opinions. (Please feel free to disagree). One of the reasons that I like C+N is that it resembles quite strongly experiences I had at school and it really brings back the memories of what it was like. I'm very grateful for that as well as the story.

I am only up to the beginning of 4, and I love the story, and I love your style. I have found that when I am totally caught up in the emotion, my writing comes off a bit like that. But you are soooo much better, more practiced. So graceful. The flow of the scenes can be so dreamlike. And the rhythm captures the rapturous flow of love-time.

And you are obviously a wonderful person, by the feelings & sentiments you express through your characters.

I plan to savour the entire 20 and then write to you again.

I can't thank you enough for the effort you have made and the obvious loving care with which you have crafted this tale.

It's 3am, and I'm on Chapter 11 I've never cried so much.

Lovely story, mate! Thank you.

The loving description of the light in his hair from the stained glass in the door just broke me. I can hardly breathe.

I want to express my appreciation for that very sentimentality & for the almost raw level of sensitivity which you maintain throughout. It would be quite a workout for me to write something that's tapped in to the "emotional aquifer," that way. I'd need a waterproof keyboard.

I also love your gentle, upbeat sense of play & humour.

I think it's high time I wrote to you about your story Chris and Nigel. I'm always wary of writing to authors about work's in progress - too many of them (probably the less mature) seem to get cocky as they receive praise, and their stories quickly become boring, badly written and often verge on unreadable.

However, as you have now finished this first episode of C & N I feel that it's a perfect time to write and share my views with you. I have to say I was most impressed with your work, it is absolutely delightful. It is one of the best stories I've read to date.

Your characters are superb, they are beautifully written and so life-like. I guess, from reading about your background on your site, that they may be based loosely around yourself and John (I'm guessing here) but that doesn't distract from the quality of writing, a poor writer couldn't even capture their own personality. Even so, the auxiliary characters, Carol, the parents etc. were developed to an equal level of depth and held such an air of realism, for me. It was most refreshing to see a parent that genuinely couldn't deal with their child's sexuality - as opposed to either accepting blindly or having a most outrageous fit, expelling them forthwith and never communicating with them again.

The rich and vivid imagery that you use to describe the English life-style and townships is gorgeous, everything seems so real (even to a Scots kid completely foreign to your culture :-) ). You're really captured the spirit of your locations, the reader can really relate, almost as if they were there themselves.

The way you handled the issues your colourful plot encompasses was perfectly executed too. The most difficult of subjects, splitting from a straight relationship when you discover it isn't what you want (made especially more difficult by Chris' genuine feelings for Carol) was dealt with in a most satisfying way. It's a theme that most writers seem scared of and barely touch upon and if they do they dismiss it flagrantly and try to 'write over' it.

Anyway, the gratuitous praise could go on and on, but I'm sure you've heard all this before. (If not, then I'll write again and keep going).

To summarise, I whole-heartedly enjoyed reading your work. No, more than that, I loved it. I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you the very best of luck in publishing it. I'll most certainly buy a copy (and one for all my friends too).

I just had to write to say thanks for the first book of Chris and Nigel. I have read each chapter as they arrived and have to say that I feel almost as though I know them personally. I love your style and the characters are so believable that I can well believe that they virtually wrote it themselves. Congratulations and again thanks.

I really enjoyed your novel Chris and Nigel. I'm looking forward to more about them. Please in your new book, pick up the story where you left it in this one. I think many of your readers will want to know what happens next rather than what happens after a time gap. Excellent writing! Thanks.

I was completely enthralled with the story and characters. I almost cried twice. Wish I had read this 25 years ago when I was 15. (I still feel 15, but that's another matter.) Your writing is compelling and so gripping. I loved it.

Just to say thanks for your creative efforts. I'm completely inexperienced in gay life - as yet - but thought there was no voice out there like the tender dreams in my head. Your prose is loving and arousing and I just wanted to say thanks.

Chris? Is this the guy who wrote that story? Was it true? It was so wonderful...I cant think of anything else that I would want it to be like. I am a virgin and just found I was gay. That was so wonderful I just cant say that enough. I am so glad that you wrote it down. Did it really happen like that? Wow. You wrote it all so well I can tell either it really meant something to you, because I thought I was there with you. It was awesome. I have a guy that I believe I'm in love with. We have talked on the net for a while. Actually I know I am in love with him. I cant think of anything else and neither can he. He is coming to visit me in May. I hope that any experience we have is half as good as the one that you described. If it is true are you still with him? I hope so because you two are so beautiful.

I just re-read Chris and Nigel entire. It is such a special story. I love those two boys. I love the sweet bit of you that pervades the entire story. I hope that, with practice, I can come up to your level, as an author.

I just love your Chris & Nigel stories. I'm American, but I can feel and become a part of your story and imagine what it is like to grow up gay in England. You have a real knack for making the reader feel the story and not just read it. I feel like I was Chris or at least wish I was! Keep writing and I promise to keep reading.

I never thought I could cry so much over a story. Kewl. awesome

I just wanted to tell you I found your story both erotic but also very moving. It reduced me to tears more than once. It's a great tale of young love, the torment they experience, the passion and pain comes across very well. I really want to know what happens to our young friends. I'm almost afraid to read the next instalment if you write it, just in case things don't work out for them. It seems if a relationship deserved to work, it does for these two. Keep up the great work.

This may sound a little strange, and when I 'think' about it, it makes no sense, but I prefer to 'feel' rather than just think anyway, far more reliable, so here goes anyway. As I read your story I found myself being pulled into it very deeply. As I mentioned [before], I was moved to tears a number of times. I felt my heart open to these two young men, fictional as they may be, but very real 'people'. This is attributable to the skills of the author, and the 'reality' of what it is to fall in love, and all the dramas, and the intense emotional roller coaster ride it is.

I found myself being afraid for Nigel, feeling his insecurity, the fact he was so brave to come out to Chris and risk all resonated deep within me. Then Chris and his relationship with Carol, and all the emotion involved with that. And then the return home and all that unfolded there. Your skill in conveying Chris's incredible grief when his mother reacted as she did initially, the sense of relief when Nigel' s mum and Chris's dad responded so lovingly as they did. As I type and am reminded of those moments, I am once again visited with quite intense emotion. Ahem, anyway. To be honest I'm left struggling, the first day back at school, they hardly see each other at all. Something's going on with Andy and yet our young lovers have not even spoken..... Sigh, it's either masterful story telling to keep people coming back, or you are a sadist :o).

My feelings are that you have provided an extraordinary vehicle with 'Chris and Nigel' to send a very powerful message to gay youth. As someone who had a secret lover as a 14 year old myself, I know how they feel. I didn't come out until I was 22, that's another story altogether, so for them to reveal their relationship and be accepted as they have been is wonderful. You have captured the intensity of young love, the ups and the downs. Love is not easy, young love even harder, but here is a vehicle to show that it can and does happen, and that it can work. They may not be together forever, and selfishly I want them to be , it's like a fairy tale with them living happily ever after. Who knows, it may end up that way, god knows the trials that lay ahead of them both when they are discovered more publicly.

The potential for positive reinforcement to gay youth is awesome, and I bow humbly in your direction for the effort and work you have produced to date. I'm sure these two exist out there somewhere. The love they experience is so intense, and that is what has drawn me into their life. That is what keeps me almost pining to experience their story as it continues to unfold. I'm 33 now, not old, but old enough to have lost the pure innocence of what Chris and Nigel are experiencing. In my heart I long for them to find the bond and love I didn't, and for it to last. Was it Chris or Nigel who spoke about imagining themselves as 40 year old men, still together and in Love. My heart yearns for the final chapter of their story to have them die in each others arms as very old men, having lived and loved, and never lost.

I have just this minute finished reading [book 1]. I just couldn't stop reading it. It is truly an awesome piece of writing. I think I cried my way through most of it. Tears of sadness and of happiness. It all just seemed so real. I could identify with the characters, their pleasure and their heartache.

I just had to write to tell you how much I love your stories. You have [so] much insight into how a gay person feels about love and the pitfalls of being in love with another boy That's why I get so involved with the characters in your stories. Its me in them and I know what those feelings of emptiness and ecstasy are like. I wish you were writing these stories when I was a teen and could have gotten them. It would have made my life so much easier to deal with. I think there are a lit of teens out there that can gain so much insight from your writings and bypass so much of the fear and self destruction that being gay can bring if they can see the beautiful side of gay love. Thanks so much for being so insightful and huggable.

Wow and I thought the first 20 chapters was great. Book 2 is awesome keep up the great work.

After reading your novel I was moved by so much, and the recognition was so startling, the beauty so confronting, that I feel I had to let you know. Because, after I thought about it, this occurred as something rather special to me. Along with the story, I was in tears, was anxious, got exited, etc. Quite basic you know.

[There were] a million things I really liked about your book. As a matter of fact I spend this whole quiet Sunday reading it, going through the same emotions as the main characters did, I really fell in love with Nigel, intuitively identifying with Chris, I think. I never read a story on this topic anywhere before (and I did read quite a lot).

Hi I'm a 17 year old boy from the U.S. and I recently started to read this story. I think is the most beautiful and inspirational story I have read in along while. I can't seem to stop reading it. I particularly loved chapter 11 because is filled with such emotion that I could hardly read from crying. I love reading love stories specially when I give up on love. Life hasn't exactly been good to me in matters of the heart. I had a crush on a guy forlike for years and I finally had to give him up because I was tearing myheart apart in the prosses. Well What i wanted to say I love ur work and keepup the good work.

I just wanted you to know that your Chris and Nigel stories are the best. They showed me what true love can be like. I now have my very first boyfriend. He and I both read them and we love each other so much. We're in our teens too and are first real loves for each other. Many thanks for making our lives richer

Superb characterization, plot development, and emotional weight

That story was absolutely amazing. It is quite possibly one of the best, if not the absolute best, story with a gay theme that I have read. The story really hits home identifying many of the issues that teenage gays face. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up!!!!!!

I have just finished reading chapter 6 [book 2]. It is so, so, soooooo good. Thank you for sharing your wonderful talents with all of us. It is wonderful that Chris and Nigel can share their love with each other and I hope it can continue.

Reading your writings is as if I was a fly on the wall watching and hearing all that is going on. It is so gratifying and in the end gives me good feelings too!!!

Man I have just finished reading the last installment of Chris & Nigel!! I can't tell you how moving it has been for me. I love your character developement. I love the way you've pulled the characters together. It wasn't too fairy tale because one of the parents went bonkers, then recovered. Also, Andy's situation was real life. I just loved it dude!! I also am a Bisexual man, married with children and was SOOOOO in love with a boy when I was young. I think the thing that hits so close to home is the feelings. I felt everyone of them trying to survive through them. I never got to tell him, he's str8. But, man do I understand the feelings!! Thanks a million and I'm looking forward to more.

I've just completed reading the last chapter of Chris and Nigel book 2. Awesome writing. It had me in tears. Although the story is fiction it felt real to me as if I was part of their story their life and their love for each other. I know that love like that can exists my only hope is that I will find and experience it once in my life time. Keep up the good writing and I hope to see the next chapter soon

Thanks from the bottom of my heart for the way this story made me feel (full of love).

I have to thank you for your wonderful story "Chris and Nigel". I have read it a few weeks ago but had to get my mind clear before writing you.

I have almost cried and laughed while reading it, and I read all chapters of both books within 3 or 4 days. Whenever I wasn't reading, I had to think about the story and knew that I had to go on as soon as possible. It changed my life - forever. In fact, it turned it upside down.

I have never loved anyone, and I am not sure if I am able to, but while reading your story I suddenly knew what love is, and I felt it for the very first time in my life, not for a certain person, but somehow I felt what it must be like to be loved.

I just wanted to write you to tell you that I love your story so far, and I am eagerly awaiting the next chapter and beyond.

I'm not even sure how I stumbled upon it (not being an idiot, I was looking for a story, just not this kind), but considering that I'm 1)female 2)straight and 3) old enough to.....well old enough - it isn't generally the type of story I read.

But regardless of all that, it's a lovely touching story. At times, it nearly makes me cry ! The way I know a truly good story (for me that is) is when you get to this climactical point, and you think "Oh, NO !! He's going to screw it up !" then you spend 5 minutes trying to imaging what you'd do to fix the situation, before going on and reading what ACTUALLY happens. Your story fits the bill !

It's so sincere and sweet... it half makes me wish I could be one of them just to be that loved (and young enough to love that hard), and alternately makes me SO glad that I'm straight, because I know I'm not strong enough to live life that way. I'd do anything to make the world totally different, to make all lifestyles acceptable, but it's a sad fact that some people are just total retards, for lack of a better, more PC word. I see those people every day of my life, and I tell them off all the time. But I don't think I'd be so bold if those hurtful things were said to me, about me.

I hope some day (and some day SOON) that people will all truly be treated fairly, equally...But until then, I truly hope you'll continue with these (and even create more) strong characters that possess so many wonderful traits, and handle their challenges so wonderfully.

I don't know exactly who wrote Chris and Nigel but it had to be written by the mind of a genius!! I am only half way through the story and it is put together so ingeniously that it's mind-boggling. It is such a beautiful piece of work that it would be a pity if it weren't put into book form and put on sale in the best book stores. These two very sensitive young boys who don't know what is happening to them exactly (Carol kind of stiring things for us) and yet they are very sure of what they want and need and Nigel's parents are such human parents.

This had to be written by a very sensitive person who may have had many of these same things woven into his own life. It really takes an extrasensory perception to write a story of this calibre.

I think that the reason that I like the sory so much is because you seemed to touch on almost every concern of a confused teenager. Although I am no longer a teenager I think that your story would be great for them to read regardless of all the sex involved in it.

I just wanted to drop a few lines and say that I was totally blown away by the scope and depth of emotion present in this continuing story (oh, please tell me it continues). Like many of the others who wrote to you about these characters, I find myself on the brink of tears, if not outright bawling my eyes out. And it's not just the fact that in each character there are aspects of the noble and the weak, but also strengths that we all feel and spend our lives bouncing back and forth between.

As a young teen, I myself discovered I was "not like everyone else." I mean, attraction is part of who we are, part of what we seek to find completion in our own lives. I was also one of those who looked more for companionship and love in my secret yearnings, despite being randy as a troop of pigs at high summer. The way that Nigel and Chris seem to be fumbling towards perfect love is not only touching but honest. And while a good bit of stories of this type are nothing but "grope here" or "sex marathons," these two characters seem to embody exactly what I would have given my right arm to have had as a teenager.

I admit, that as an American, I often find some of the things in the story a bit out of context, but in the end, it doesn't matter how I find these things. The fact is that Chris and Nigel find them to be their everyday existence and that also comes across in the plot. Not just the joys of finding a perfect partner, someone to love who returns your love with out reservation, but that everything is normal around them. That despite our focusing on this one bright spot in the universe, that other spots touch it as well and are part of a greater light.

I tend to ramble on when I write notes, which is rare enough as it is, so I'll try to close this as quickly as I can. I want you to understand the depth of appreciation I, and no doubt, many others have for what you have written (and hopefully will continue to write). You have coalesced much of what I felt as a nervous, frightened kid and gave it a touch of not only respect, but a depth of understanding and a subtle gentleness that, believe it or not, helped put a spring in my step for several days after reading the first few chapters. As a writer myself, I understand how difficult that feeling is to instill in others with words alone. Chris and Nigel and their mates are all real people to me now. As real as any of the myriad of characters that float about in the dim spaces between my own ears. I thank you for your talent, your wit and your honesty.

How do I write to the author of C&N? The story has had and incredible impact on me. It has led to a self-understanding that 40 years of contemplating my sexuality had not yielded. I cannot thank you enough.

Chris and Nigel are real. Of course, they live in an unreal world (4 out of 4 accepting parents) (headmistress who understands) (the first six friends at school who learn are willing to keep it secret), but that doesn't stop their reality. Their expressions of love are terribly immature, but at 14 what would we expect? It is their realness that gives them the impact. Wow, 2 boys in love, deeply in love, and sharing it with the world through the novel. Rarely do I feel so personally touched by the characters in a novel. I feel like I could carry on a conversation with either Chris or Nigel, or Carol or John for that matter. Perhaps Carol is a little too unreal!

Why the impact on me? As I have gotten to know Chris and Nigel I have been invited to think back on my life, my near loves and real ones, and (perhaps for the first time) understand. The understanding is not what you might think: I was born in 1940. I became sexually mature in the mid to late 50's. Homosexuality was not an option. It was not a lifestyle, it was a perversion. I remember in my freshman year of college wondering if I could go to a school psychologist and be "cured". As an adult, I have come to understand that I can love, romantically and erotically, both men and women, boys and girls. What I didn't understand, and have come to understand because of C&N is that I live in a cheated generation. When I had the chance to express love to a boy or man, it was absolutely out of the question. I learned to suppress it. Thank goodness I have been able to love a woman (and two sons) for 35 years. It has been a good life. But back to why I live in a cheated generation: If I had been born at the turn of the century I would have had the same youth experiences as a bi-sexual teen. But, as an adult I would have viewed the same world, and not been unhappy. But born in 1940, I suffered the repression of the 50's and early 60's, but now live to see a different world. And I am jealous. I see young men deeply in love with other young men, and able to live openly in that love. I was cheated. Cheated by a calendar that forces me to look back and know what I missed.

I wouldn't trade my wife, my sons, or my life. But I look back and realize that there were other possibilities, and I never had the chance to choose. I might have chosen as I did, but I should have had the right to choose.

May this world preserve, and increase, the right of everyone to make their own choices, not confined by unreasonable societal norms! May Chris and Nigel continue to have the right to choose--for they represent a generation.

I have just finished reading chapter 20 of book 1 Nigel and Chris. I feel like I know them! You have done an amazing job of writing this book – it has brought back SO many memories of younger days. I was able to relate with many of the boys' experiences – not with their parents, but with each other. I just had to say thanks before I read the rest. I've not felt these emotions for many years

The love and compassion expressed in this story and the struggles to keep it secret were brilliantly written and expressed. The details of the struggles to want to be public but the struggles to keep it secret were very well written and conveyed.

The written description of the acts of intimacy between these two is the most detailed and erotic that I have ever read. You beautifully described the love and compassion and in a way that didn't come off to me as vulgar but just so completely sensual. Beautiful.

There is a lot more that I could say but I'm just not very good with expressing it with the written word. This is a great story, I loved the way it was written and the messages that it sends. I so appreciate you writing and sharing it.

I'm happy to have Chris and Nigel in my head and heart as friends. Thanks for introducing them to me. They are special characters.