I’m delighted to welcome author Harker Jones to What Cathy Read Next today. Harker’s novel Until September (described as ‘a gay coming-of-age love story’) was published in July 2019 and is available to purchase from Amazon UK in paperback and as an ebook. As every self-published author knows, promoting your book to potential readers is a task that never ends. That’s where book bloggers come in so I’m pleased to be able to bring you an extract from the book that will, I hope, whet your appetite to read it. But first, more details about the book which I have to say is giving me Call Me By Your Name vibes.
About the Book
In the lull between the conservative ’50s and the turbulent ’60s, Kyle Ryan Quinn, an introspective, sentimental boy, leads a golden life. He’s rich, beautiful and smart, and he summers every year on the same island with the same group of friends. Haunted by the ghosts of a tragedy that took place in his youth, Kyle is more sensitive than his privileged peers. He understands loss, and secrets.
When he meets Jack Averill, a quiet, bookish boy, his fateful 18th summer on the island, Kyle attempts to integrate him into his tight-knit yet troubled circle while at the same time he’s pursued by another summer boy, and his best friend toys with the affections of an island girl. Amid mounting familial, sexual and peer pressures, all four young men make heartbreaking decisions that will steal their innocence, destroy lives and consume them forever.
Extract from Until September by Harker Jones
Prologue
I was so young when it all began that the blame hardly feels like mine. But no matter how minor a part I played, mine was the most pivotal. In the end, it was a decision I made.
So though there are many stories I tell, this is the one I’ve never shared. I can’t bear to think about it, except in my most submerged recesses, releasing it in the deep deep dark of night, when it will not be evaded.
How many years would you have to go back to change your destiny? That question plagues me. Because if I can think in terms of destiny, I can afford myself a slight reprieve, a misguided waft of air in a stagnant, decaying well. If I can think in terms of destiny, I can believe that I did what I did because I had no option. It had been predetermined and I’d only acted out my role.
But destiny is the weak man’s conception. To believe in destiny is to take no responsibility for your choices.
And I won’t allow myself the luxury.
I learned a little from Trent that summer, but not enough to open the eyes of a self-involved, spoiled, jealous 17-year-old. Then, later, years later, I ran into Dana. We had drinks, both of us smoking too much, talking too much, drinking too much, wondering if the other was glossing things over. I saw a subtle loneliness in her eyes that I recognized only because it was in mine, too. She knew. And she knew that I knew. It’s scary, that loneliness, because you want so much to have someone alleviate it, yet the only people who can are those who know it, too. And when you find one of those people you’re terrified that that person can see through your carefully wrought facade, and you realize you’re naked in front of a virtual stranger, so you just run.
Run.
I learned most of it from Kyle. The details. The things I couldn’t have known. Those things pursue me. Those and the things Dana told me happened after. After I passed out of the picture. I was able to spend some uncomfortable but pleasant time with her until she told me. That was when I had to flee. I had to escape. That was when the running became all.
I’m still running.
Just as Kyle is still chasing.
Neither of us will succeed — me in escaping or Kyle in capturing.
We know this.
We don’t stop.
Someone once told me that tears water the soul. I do not believe this. If it were true, my soul would be fertile and verdant. But it is stunted and gnarled and withered and cracked.
Which is something I could live with.
If Kyle’s had been spared.
Kyle would say this is Jack’s story. But, just as this is the only story I can never share, this is the only one Kyle will ever be able to tell.
So I think of this as Kyle’s story.
About the Author
Harker Jones is the author of the Amazon #1 best-selling love story Until September and nine screenplays, revealing truths through humor and horror. His short thrillers Cole & Colette and One-Hit Wonder have been accepted into more than 60 film festivals combined, garnering several awards.
He was managing editor of Out magazine for seven years, spent two in gay porn, and worked at Disney Publishing. A member of both the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle and Mensa, he loves cats and carbs and would like to be a one-hit wonder but would settle for being killed in a slasher movie.
Connect with Harker
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