After Alyson

I am awake again, teased by sleep, tortured by my longing for all this to be undone, tortured by the love that I wasted, tortured by my dreams of what could have been. Tortured, after Alyson.

Mark Garvey likes wine, football and women – the latter often a bit too much. He is obsessed by his past but wants a better future. His long-term relationship with Alyson, an Australian physiotherapist that he met by chance one day, has ended disastrously. In an attempt to forge a new start, he escapes Birmingham for a new job as Director of Social Services in Devon. He moves to Hope Cove, rents a holiday home and tries to start a new life. As a kid, he took holidays in the same part of Devon, so his reason for being there mirrors his desire to rediscover a sense of childhood optimism for the future. Yet leaving does not resolve his problems; it just creates new ones that get in the way of him moving forward. Crime and death overshadows his pursuit of happiness.

He eventually stumbles into a relationship with the local doctor, Kalpna. Yet beneath the surface, the playground of his childhood optimism is littered with pitfalls and chaos – not that different to what he has left behind. Mark Garvey has many problems, but the biggest problem he has is that he is Mark Garvey.

Told half through flashback and half through present-day narrative, After Alyson is funny, romantic and at times disturbing. The insight into deafness and disability makes this book unique. David Sindall will donate one pound per ebook sold to the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS). ‘NDCS helps parents of deaf children find the correct support so their child can achieve their full potential. It’s an important organisation as it helps to open doors for deaf children so they have the same chances as any other child.’