A Man Like Me

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.