James Carnarvon

Hello, Ravello fans, While I'm hard at work on the ninth story in this 'series that was never meant to be a series' (chapters will hopefully start dropping in June), I've finally signed up to Spotify in order to share with you this playlist of songs that inspired me while I was writing the book and sort of follow its story. My writing has never 'needed' music as much as it did when I was working on this, my first romance and my first novel-length effort. However, the forthcoming Ravello #9 has a playlist too - for one very pivotal scene - which I'll also share with you when the time comes, if this one goes down well. In spoiler tags below, I've included a guide to the tracks and their relevance to the story. Running time: 1 hr 13 mins Enjoy - and see you again soon! -J

'Lad' can also be used to describe someone who shows a particular form of tiresome male behaviour ('laddish'). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lad_culture

Thank you very much - great to have you back on board. I wonder how you'll get on with the rest of this one...! It's not my favourite story I've done. My next Ravello story, though, is already 60% written...

Very evocative, painting vivid pictures in so few words.

Hahaha, you got me with this one! Delightfully decadent… irresistibly indulgent… and super smutty. (I’m better with alliteration than rhyme)

I have always been daunted by poetry, both as a reader and a writer (especially Haiku, argh!). You have to say so much in so few words... and, when the poetry reflects your own lived experience, put yourself on the line. It's a brave way to start out. I believe you have succeeded. As others have already commented, these poems are both personal and inspirational. Thank you for sharing them with us. Keep us posted as you develop the craft!

I thought you might like the ending! Honestly, I don't think this is my finest work. Although I had worked hard to lay the emotional groundwork for it, the actual flashpoint in this chapter and the aftermath ended up making what felt like a rather abrupt ending. This story was originally meant to be twelve chapters long like the others, but the whole thing was coming out shorter and I ended up condensing the last four chapters into two as I felt I didn't have enough story to justify that many parts. As originally planned, the penultimate chapter would have ended with Sami going over the landslip (and probably his rescue), and the final chapter would have dealt with the fallout, but - as you've seen here - that could all be dealt with in far fewer words. I would have had to pad it out wildly to justify a whole additional chapter. Anyway, thank you (all) for coming along for the ride! It's likely that a subsequent story would return to focus on Dani, Marco, Giaco, Emilia and Luca, although I'm not sure exactly on what terms.

And thank you for all your comments! Like you, I hope that everyone is where they need to be now.

Now that we're all done, I can reveal the four key mental images that drove the creation of this story: Reza and Sami meeting each other for the first time, facing each other across the square with something unknown passing between them; Gianni facing the impossible choice of saving either Sami or Dani and taking the worst option; Giacomo at the party, trying to impress Dani with his red tie-dye t-shirt but ending up out in the cold; and For some reason, Giacomo (again!), sliding into the square on his back in the most uncool fashion at the start of the snowball fight. It sort of fitted his diminished status among the friendship group, and the thought just made me laugh. Most of my story outlines are built around a few key visuals like this. The weirdest thing? So focused was I on charting the breakdown in Gianni and Sami's relationship, I didn't realise Marco was going to move in with Gianni and Angelo until halfway through writing this, but then I was like... of course that's the ending! The two storylines mirror each other perfectly.

It's not heroic, it's the ultimate betrayal. He recognises that, and it's what makes him realise he can go no further as Sami's parent. EDIT: And then there's Dani. What I hoped to convey in that scene was that Dani was working hard not to lose faith in Gianni after what had just happened. Because of who Dani is, he manages to forgive Gianni, but he sort of challenges him to make up for it by doing the right thing by Marco.

Thank you for being so honest! I knew there was a risk that this story might make some readers take against my hero, and I think I can hear the parent in you coming out in your reaction. Yes, Gianni DOES fail Sami, but that’s sort of the point of the story. I personally think he is aware that he is failing throughout the story, and that anxiety only serves to add extra tension to their relationship and further hastens its end. Fostering or adopting neglected or traumatised children is very different from raising your own, and unfortunately not everybody is suitable for the role, and placements break down all the time. Usually there are no ‘bad guys’ in the scenario, it’s just all very sad, and I think that’s the case here. In the UK, the adoption system works very hard to try to prevent this sort of thing happening. Prospective adopters are tested heavily on their commitment to adoption, their understanding of the additional challenges that it raises and their likely ability to cope with the sort of superficially rejecting behaviour Sami displays in this story. Even once (and if) the prospective adopters are approved, there is a further thorough process to ensure that any potential match of child to parent(s) is likely to be a good one. Even with all that planning and preparation, there’s no substitute for living it, and sometimes it still goes south. Gianni, unfortunately, had none of that preparation, and at 25 he’s still quite young. Ultimately, it wasn’t a good match, and it’s better for all concerned - albeit sad in the short term - for it to end. I hoped I had done enough to demonstrate, through this story, the beginning of a much more understanding relationship with Marco. I really don’t think there’s any reason to fear for him. Had he remained with his birth parents, however, we might have been looking at a very different outcome in a year or two.

Yes, the landslip was seeded in chapter one. I didn’t want to keep referring back to it too often. Dani, Marco and Giaco need a little more time to grow up. 🙂 Sami living long-term with Gianni and Angelo never felt quite right to me. Creating Reza and writing this story has all been an exercise in moving the pieces to the right spaces on the board, so to speak. Thank you once again for all your comments!

That’s true. I’m not exactly one for surprise twists. 😅 Thank you for reading and commenting throughout!

They rose late the next morning. Gianni was first to wake and, for a moment, he simply lay staring at the ceiling, basking in the glow of last night, lost in a hazy memory of intense, fevered touches. “Happy New Year,” he murmured. Slowly, reality began to reassert itself, and he realised that they ought to be getting up if they were going to get themselves together in time for Sami’s return. Feeling thick-headed, Gianni sat up on the side of the bed and stretched, trying to psych

The taste was four stars? That sounds like a pretty good review.🙃

Well, Enzo was quite happy to beat up ‘queer boys’ until the events of Michele, where the boy in question almost lost his life. When Enzo realised that he had almost caused Michele’s death, and when he further realised that he had done so based on a lie (told by Antonio, of course), it caused him to question his choices in a big way. He drummed Antonio out of town and sought to redeem himself by helping Toto and Michele save Dani’s life. He gained a reluctant respect for Toto and Michele after that. Antonio has never shown such self-reflection. He attempted to molest Michele at 14 and, in Dani the Hero, would have done the same to Giaco at 12 had circumstances not intervened to prevent it. Later on, he was prepared to set to work on Giaco with a knife, too, if it served his boss Ettore’s interests. Luckily, a certain blond ‘superhero’ was in attendance and, with a bit of help from Enzo, Antonio now rots in jail. God, doesn’t that make my stories sound dark? Thankfully, these are/were exceptional events. Antonio and Ettore are the only two truly irredeemable characters I have created, I think. Even Lorenzo has a human side.

Actually I was worried that Lorenzo was coming across as a caricature, his lines straying into the cliché territory / second rate melodrama. I was quite tired while writing this! That said, it wasn’t that difficult to write… but I find that kind of attitude hard to relate to, and I wouldn’t want to be inside that character’s head for too long. I’ve been there before with Enzo, but at least there it was clear that his behaviour was a consequence of past sexual abuse.

Hahaha, I just kinda snuck that in there, didn't I?

He's certainly an unhappy man. He's a product of a poor upbringing with little education to speak of. He works a dismal job with long hours for little money, and life, for him, has always been a struggle. He's consumed, perhaps, with his own problems and has little time for Marco. How did he and Gemma come to get married and have a child in the first place? I don't have an answer for you right now; that might be a story worth exploring. Their approach to parenting was neglectful even before this latest revelation. Anyway, in my head, Lorenzo wasn't necessarily addressing his own adolescent experiences in his comments at the meeting; it could just as easily have been one of his friends/peers he was thinking of. I didn't have any specific mitigating factors in mind to justify his behaviour; some people just are unpleasantly homophobic, as they have probably been brought up to be. However, you're free to read it how you wish.

Over the next couple of nights, a cold mist rolled in. Low clouds which draped themselves over the hills and pooled in the valleys and didn’t burn away until lunchtime. The snow faded away, trodden to compacted ice and then melting to water until there was nothing left one morning but the dew deposited by the lingering clouds. Gianni and Angelo marked time as they waited for New Year’s Eve, looking forward to their time alone together and hoping that the weather would bless them with a clea

I fear you may find the opposite - a gradual decline, with my stories becoming less coherent and more scatterbrained as I get more and more tired out by life. 😅

Thanks all! You flatter me, but no. My actual qualifications are in quite different subjects. I’ve written on and off since I was a kid, and I do remember working on evocative descriptions as I practiced back then, but I think it really started with The Summer of the Firefly. Some 10 years before I actually published my first story here, I was writing the first draft of Firefly while labouring under the notion/delusion that it could maybe get published professionally. I threw everything that I had at it, even though I lacked any experience in writing anything that long and ambitious… and I really wanted to convey the way the landscape and culture of Ravello made me feel the first time I went there (and it was my first visit to a Mediterranean country, too, so I had a proper culture shock much like Reza in La Bella Vacanza). All those descriptive passages were designed to do just that. Since then, I think I’ve learned to paint a picture without needing to use quite so many words.

Thank you! I've seen you marathoning my stories. You've been busy!

Sami barely spoke for the rest of the day. He stayed in his room, drawing feverishly with his new pencils then scrunching up the pages and throwing them away. Gianni avoided looking at the discarded pictures, for fear of what they might show. There was a sombre atmosphere after Sami had gone to bed. As they attempted to relax in the den that evening, Angelo sought to reassure Gianni, reminding him of Sergio’s advice, but Gianni wasn’t convinced. He felt sure that there was something wrong b

I respect you for saying it, although I can't really agree. Traditional action/reaction parenting tends not to work with children who have experienced neglect or abuse (or, in Sami's case, complete abandonment). Their actions are often motivated by shame - in essence, feeling that everything that has happened to them is somehow their own fault and that they don't deserve to have nice things. In such circumstances, cycles of punishment will often only entrench their difficulties further. It's good, though, that the story can spark discussion and debate. I think it's quite reasonable for readers to sympathise with either or both of the characters. After all, they're both human beings with their own thoughts and feelings. With the possible exception of Dani the Hero, which occupied a slightly different genre, I tend not to write my Ravello stories with 'good guys' and 'bad guys' in mind: just people, who all have reasons for behaving the way they do. Thank you! Angelo is Gianni's rock, and always has been. Of course, he has his own agenda too. He doesn't want Gianni to lose sight of everything the two of them have shared - in other words, he doesn't want their experience of parenthood to extinguish the spark. His gift is a timely reminder. I'm glad you feel conflicted. Life is messy! Gianni is trying to do the right thing by Sami, but of course there are different takes on what, exactly, the 'right thing' is. I do think Sami's cultural identity is important: he's too young to speak up for it himself but, if Gianni and Angelo ignored it, he might come to resent them for it as he got older. And, as you and others have rightly pointed out, is the price of preserving his identity too high?