About the Bookstore Browse Aisles Search Desk Shopping Basket Book Trade Terms Just Released! Return Policy Help Here is the full reference card for this book... If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113. A Man Like Me by Roy Brookes 526 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0274; ISBN 1-4120-2446-3; US$37.50, C$42.95, EUR31.00, £21.50 A rollercoaster ride of life and death and love and sex. The central character, Victoria, is fascinating, intelligent, witty, charming, beautiful and sexy. Read more! about the book    about the author    excerpts    catalogue info About the Book Roy Brookes' new novel is a rollercoaster ride of life and death and love and sex. Anne, a cub reporter on a London national daily newspaper, is asked by her editor to interview a rich and successful older businessman, Robin Berkeley, to obtain a few quotes regarding a recent business deal he has been involved in. She catches up with him at the hotel where he is staying in Paris. He takes her to dinner and they begin an affair. Invited by Robin to collaborate on writing his memoirs she hears about his many love affairs including his latest and greatest with the beautiful, exotic but enigmatic Victoria. Anne is moved by his description of how he met, pursued and won this vision of loveliness, 'this dream made flesh' as he puts it. Then he introduces her to Victoria herself and the rollercoaster starts rolling. Anne rides the whirlwind created by the charismatic and very sexy Victoria's strange lifestyle. They become friends and lovers. Meanwhile Anne loses her job as a journalist because of sexual harassment in the workplace and is raped by her former boss. Robin helps her to exact a terrible revenge. She and Robin and Victoria are by now embroiled in a passionate and exhilarating three-way affair that takes Anne to the heights and depths of love and sex and sexuality. She is confronted with her own desires, and experiences sights and sensations she could not even have imagined just a short time before. In a few short months her life is totally transformed. She has slipped through a window into another world which stands all her previous opinions about love and sex and gender on their heads. Nothing is what it seems. Then Anne discovers her new love Victoria's addiction to brutal and mindless sex with strangers and the horrifying reasons for it which have to do with her previous life before she met Robin who saved her and helped her to make a new start. Meanwhile Victoria has taken her into business with her and given her a new and challenging job which she loves and throws herself into. Anne discovers that she is a born businesswoman and she comes up with ideas which lead to both her and Victoria becoming rich in a short time. She has by this stage lost all track of time. The daily news which used to be her bread and butter as a journalist is now of far less interest to her than the whirlwind she is caught up in. Anne's book of Robin's life and loves is published and becomes a bestseller. She has begun to write the sequel to the book with Victoria and herself centre stage. News of the sequel sends sales of her first book soaring. She is now a very successful woman on more than one front. Robin has withdrawn with dignity from their three-way affair and left her and Victoria in a committed relationship. She has Victoria to herself. Her life would seem to be ideal except in one respect - Victoria's addiction. Anne finds the strength to begin to unravel the little knot of black stuff in her lover's mind that causes the black mist to descend. She uses her feminine wiles to combat the worst excesses. She helps Victoria through the depths. A brutal murder committed in another part of the world turns out to be part of Victoria' s salvation. Robin sells up his business interests, retires and travels the world, doing and seeing things he has never had time to. The violent death of someone close to Victoria recalls him to her side to help Victoria and Anne. The person who has died has left a lover who is now all alone in the world. Robin and she fall in love and Victoria makes it possible for them to start a new life together. She is very much like Victoria in many ways but she is not a replacement. She is his new love. He provides the perfect ending to Anne's sequel. Richly populated with vivid and colourful characters, full of atmosphere and detailed descriptions of places and events, wild, explicit sex, raunchy dialogue and humour, the story moves at rollercoaster speed between London and Hamburg, with side trips to America and Barcelona, describing a real world that few people are aware exists. The central character of Victoria is fascinating. Intelligent, witty, charming, beautiful and sexy. Everyone loves her except she herself. The other central character, Anne, shows flair and finds a strength of character she did not know she had. They form a relationship which is unusual but very close and find new dimensions of love. A lesbian love story? No. Read it and find out. About the Author Roy Brookes is a professional man who lives in the wonderful city of Hamburg. A published writer of magazine articles, this is his first novel.

Excerpts

Chapter 10

When she finally ventured downstairs she felt more composed. The memories of the previous evening's wild exertions were fading a little and she was able to push them to the back of her mind. She dressed casually, in lightweight beige cotton slacks and a discreet dark blue blouse and tried to walk as if she were not still sore. At the foot of the stairs she met Edward who informed her that his master was in the library.

"Thank God he's not in the parlour," she thought to herself picturing the scene of the previous evening's debauchery. She made her way to the library, slowly, wondering how she was going to face him and what his attitude would be. He would probably be smug - he would have every right to be after what she had said about this weekend being a celibate, working weekend and then throwing herself at him the way she did. She mentally berated herself for being such a fool. She pushed open the library door and saw him sitting in a chair with a book open in his lap. He looked perfectly normal, dressed casually in a shirt and slacks. He looked up as she came in and smiled at her. It was a perfectly normal smile - friendly and not at all smug. She smiled cautiously back and said hello.

"Good morning," he said, "and how are you feeling this beautiful morning?" There did not seem to be any hidden meaning in the question.

"Sore," she said. "I suppose you think I am a right tart after last night, throwing myself at you like that." She blushed.

"Actually, no I don't. What I do think is that you are a super-sexy woman who gives as good as she gets. You were a real tiger last night and you completely blew my mind. In fact Edward practically had to scrape us both off the floor and off each other some time in the small hours. I had thought that nights like that were in the past for me. You proved me wrong. Thank you." It was said so graciously that her mouth fell open. She had expected him to crow about his triumph over her stated unwillingness to have sex with him and here he was thanking her with not a hint of smugness.

"I am afraid I did and said some things which... well... I don't know ..." She spluttered to a stop.

"What we did was between consenting adults and it was great while it was happening," he said. "What you said - well, you did say you love me, but I will not hold you to that," he grinned. "I must admit to being a little bit in love with you myself, but I am unsure of where that could lead either of us, so let' s just forget the word love for now and take each day as it comes, OK?"

"Er, OK," she gulped. "Are we still friends then?"

"More than ever. Come over here and sit by me and I' ll organise some coffee for us. Then we should get back down to work."

"Work? How can you after last night? Surely it changes everything?"

"Not for me. Well, yes, I suppose it does in a way. It makes us closer. It may help you to write the book better. You could even put yourself in it now. No, that was a bit underhand, sorry." He smiled and held out a hand to her. "Come on, sit here." He led her to a chair, picked up the phone and ordered coffee.

"I can hardly sit still," she said and ventured a smile. "My cunt took such a pounding last night it is still painful. It was good though. I can honestly say that I have never experienced lovemaking like it. I wanted it hot and hard and I got just what I wanted." She shivered as a flashback to the previous night shimmered through her mind and she saw and heard herself again wildly begging him to fuck her. She hugged herself and ventured a closer look at him.

He was sitting back with one leg thrown casually over the arm of his chair. His shirtsleeves were pushed up his arms and she could see the little hairs on his forearms against his lightly tanned skin. His face was smiling, his eyes wrinkled up in that way that she was coming to know so well. His hair was short and neatly brushed. He returned her gaze with frankness and looked right into her eyes. She found herself smiling back at him and felt the familiar warmth beginning to flood her vagina. Embarrassed, she looked away, just as Mrs Ferneyhough entered with a discreet cough and a tray of coffee and cups which she placed on a nearby coffee table before swirling out again.

"I don' t know how you do it," she began, "but you turn me on something rotten. Just sitting here looking at you now I'm getting warm and wet all over again. What have you done to me, you bastard?"

"I? I have done nothing," he said, raising his hands to show his innocence. "I have simply been the instrument for you to express your own desires." She had no answer to that. For once her sharp wit and sharp tongue were stilled. Maybe he was right. Maybe that was the secret of his success with women. She toyed with the idea.

"To work," he said, suddenly sitting up straight. "Have you got your little tape recorder with you?"

"No, sorry. I left it in the... in the parlour last night. Will you get it for me please?"

"Unwilling to revisit the scene of the crime, eh?" He joked as he got up to go. He was back in a few minutes. "At least the thing was switched off last night," he said, "or I could embarrass you with a recording of your sighs and cries." He handed the machine to her together with the box of tapes. She checked it over and set it up on the coffee table.

"Where do you want to go today?" He asked.

"You tell me. It's your story. Just kick off wherever you like. I can re-sequence it later."

"OK. Let' s start with you."

"No, for Heaven's sake, don't," she gasped.

"Oh, don't worry. All I was going to say was: do you know that you are the first woman I have felt close to in 5 years?"

"I am? How come? I mean you have been telling about how you have always been so successful with women and then..."

"I'll tell you all about it. My second wife, Alice, was a wonderful woman. Good-looking, sure, but it was much more than that. She had qualities that made her attractive to everybody, men and women alike. She was so lovely that everybody loved her. She didn't have an enemy in the world. Even her first husband, her ex, was a friend and still a bit in love with her. I was a very lucky man to talk her into marrying me. I still consider myself lucky to have had the privilege of knowing her and sharing my life with her for a few short years. When she died, suddenly, of a heart attack I was devastated. I could not work, I could not eat, I lost weight, and I became listless and did not care about anything but my own sorrow. For a year I was practically a zombie, going through the motions of life but not really living, you know." He paused and sipped his coffee.

"Finally I started to come back to the land of the living. I started to go to the office again. My people had kept the company going while I had been away but it was just ticking over. I began to make strategic decisions and move the business forward. Then I started to go out again. I would go to parties and dinner with friends and it was just like after my divorce - there were all these available women, the divorcées and widows and so on, and people tried to pair me off with them. But this time round I was not so interested. None of them could compare to Alice. I did not want another woman - I wanted my wife but she was gone forever. I tried to make it with a couple of them - I really did - but I could not. I could not make love to them convincingly and I did not want anything else they had to offer either, so the relationships went nowhere fast. I was more comfortable with one-night stands and whores when I wanted sexual release without commitment. I have already told you the story of the Brazilian prostitute. That happened during that period." He paused again and poured them both more coffee.

"Then, about 2 years after Alice's death, which would be just over 3 years ago, I was staying in a hotel in the West End of London. I had had a meeting in the hotel and was having a drink in the bar to unwind afterwards when this beautiful creature walked in. She was stunning. I mean drop-dead gorgeous in a slightly Latin way. Long dark hair, long legs in a short skirt, dark brown flashing eyes under arched eyebrows, full eyelashes and a mouth to die for. She was sort of petite but perfectly proportioned. She looked nothing at all like my deceased wife I hasten to add. Alice's looks were much more understated. This girl was just something else. Look, I have some photographs here to show you." He got up and went to a bookshelf and took down a photograph album. He handed it to her. "These are all photos of Alice," he said.

She looked through the album with interest. As he had said, Alice's looks were understated. A warm and bubbly personality shone through which lit up her rather ordinary face and transformed it into something special. She was smiling or laughing in almost every picture, holding onto a sunhat in the wind, posing in front of the Eiffel Tower or even at some formal occasion in evening dress. She found herself smiling at the obvious warmth of this woman who had died so tragically 5 years ago and left her husband so distraught.

"And the girl? Do you have any pictures of her? I take it you had an affair with her or you would not be telling me about her, but you said I was the first woman you had felt close to in five years. I am confused."

"Hold on a minute, you' re getting ahead of the story. Yes I did have an affair with her and yes, I do have some pictures. They' re here." He handed over a slim wallet but she noticed that he had extracted most of the photographs before he did so. "I'll show you the rest of the pictures at the appropriate point in the story," he said. "You'll understand what I mean then."

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