Teardown
by William Campbell Powell
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GENRE: LGBT+ Romance
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BOOK BLURB:
Growing up in a dead-end, Thames Valley town like Marden Combe, Kai knows there’s no escape without a lot of talent, hard work—and luck.
Two weeks before the Clayton Paul Blues Band plans to set out on tour to Germany, their singer quits, and drummer Kai takes matters in hand. With bandmates Jake and Jamie, they recruit a talented new singer—the enigmatic Dominique—as the new face of the band and set out on the road to Berlin in a rickety white van.
Dogged by mishaps and under-rehearsed, the band stumbles through their first shows, zig-zagging between chaos and brilliance. But as the first gig in Berlin draws near, the band begins to gel. They’re clicking with their audience, and even the stone-hearted Kai starts to crumble under the spell, first of Dom and then…of Lars.
As the end of the tour approaches, Kai must make hard choices. Dom? But she’s keeping a dark secret. Lars? Not after the acrimony of their last parting. The band? Or will that dream crumble too?
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EXCERPT ONE:
The bus stank of commuters. It wasn’t like a night bus, granted, but the mix of sweat and cheap scent—and the pungency of diesel—was another reminder of how much I hated Marden Combe.
A Thames Valley town like every other Thames Valley town, Marden Combe had a posh, blingy bit, where the bankers, footballers, and celebrity chefs lived. The rest ran the spectrum from dilapidated through demolished to barely affordable modern rabbit hutches. The old town centre was closing down, and the new shopping centre was gridlock hell.
The bus lurched and swung left, past a school named for a long-dead parliamentarian. Or possibly a royalist. I ought to know; it had been my old school till I’d turned sixteen. But it had all seemed irrelevant to the more immediate problem of not getting picked on for being different. There were a dozen ways and more to be different, whether it was for being too ugly, too geeky, too slow on the uptake, too shy, too dark, not dark enough, having a funny accent, or a fundy religion, or being neurodivergent, being too posh, being too poor, liking the wrong music, or football team, or playing oddball sports, or using last year’s tech; not liking girls, not liking boys, not liking either, liking both. Plus others, plus combinations. By more than one marker, I was weird, and I hadn’t always kept my head down. But there’d definitely been no bullying at Sir Long-Dead-Parliamentarian School. Or Royalist, as the case may be. Oh no.
That didn’t come close to summing up the suffocating, hope-crushing, soul-sucking, shit-brown hole that is Marden Combe. I needed to escape.
If I had a plan, it was that music would save me…
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GUEST POST:
What is your favorite motivational phrase and how do you apply it your writings? Life? Etc.?
Hi, and thank you for inviting me to write about my favourite motivational phrase. I didn’t have to think hard about it – it’s a phrase that has been a part of my work ethos for most of my working life, though I formulated it comparatively recently:
“Push my boundaries”
Ten years ago I had just heard that my debut novel – Expiration Day – had won a minor award, and would I like to go to the annual World Science Fiction Convention in Spokane, WA. No, it wasn’t one of the big awards, so I’d have to pay for my own flight, accommodation and convention membership. But, why not? It was the first in a lifetime opportunity, and it might be the once in a lifetime opportunity.
The slight softening of the blow was learning that membership was half-price if I went on at least 5 panels. There were a few obvious ones – e.g. Hard SF for Teens – but for the rest? So I wrote “push my boundaries” on the form – that was the first time I’d used the phrase – and hit ‘send’.
And then I waited, to see what they’d pick for me.
Oh. Poetry in SF. That would probably have been bottom of my list. But I had written a little poetry for Expiration Day, so … yeah! Go for it! Push My Boundaries!!
And the poetry panel came, and I offered stats and my opinions on poetry in SF. I read out one of my poems to an OK response. PMB.
And then it was over. At which point my neighbour on the panel turned to me and said to me “You’re William Campbell Powell. Author of Expiration Day, right?” and I agreed, wondering where this was going. “I’d like to make an audiobook of Expiration Day.”
Wow!
And so it came to be – but he’d never have come across my book if I hadn’t been on that panel. He only bought it because it was in my bio and we were on the panel. PMB for the Win!
There’s another formulation for PMB that I like. It’s not as catchy as PMB, but it’s served me well in my career in software development. It’s “When asked, say yes”. In most of my roles, at some time I’ve been propositioned thus: “We hired you for your skills in X, but we need you now to learn Y.”
It’s meant I’ve never got stale in my career. It’s meant that when one role goes sour, or redundancy looms, I’ve got a breadth of skills to fall back on.
And in my writing life, PMB has helped me explore new genres. There’s no manual for writing an enby romance. There’s precious little acknowledgement in fiction that non-binary people exist, let alone that they can be the main character. PMB. From early on, I realised that I was going to have to write a whole novel – Teardown – without ever using a pronoun to reference Kai. PMB. I had to build a mental picture of Kai that excluded any overt sexual characteristics. PMB.
So how can you push your boundaries today?
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AUTHOR BIO & LINKS:
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William lives in a small Buckinghamshire village in England. By night he writes speculative, historical, crime and other fiction. His debut novel, EXPIRATION DAY, was published by Tor Teen in 2014 and won the 2015 Hal Clement Award for better than half-decent science in a YA novel—the citation actually says "Excellence in Children's Science Fiction Literature".
William’s latest novel - TEARDOWN - was published 10th December 2024, by NineStar Press in the US; it is an LGBT+ romance/road-trip.
His short fiction has appeared in DreamForge, Metastellar, Abyss & Apex and other outlets.
By day he writes software for a living and in the twilight he sings tenor, plays guitar and writes songs.
My Websites:
Facebook:
Instagram:
BlueSky:
My Comps for the Book:
The novel combines elements of LGBTQIA+ romance with Road Trip fiction, and - with its focus on music - might sit alongside Taylor Jenkins Reid’s ‘Daisy Jones and the Six’ (2016) or Dawnie Walton’s ‘The Final Revival of Opal & Nev’ (2022), or - with its focus on (Kai's) gender-ambiguity and relationships - near Camille Perry’s ‘When Katie Met Cassidy’ (2018) or Beth O’Leary’s ‘The Road Trip’ (2022).
One USP:
The book is about a band and contains original songs, for which I have created demos – see/listen:
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BOOK BUY LINKS & BOOK SALE INFO:
**Teardown eBook is on SALE for ONLY $0.99 during the book tour!!!**
Amazon US Kindle eBook:
Amazon CA Kindle eBook:
Amazon UK Kindle eBook:
Book Website:
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