James Carnarvon

"The dark-eyed boy flexed his fingers a little." It wasn't anything too intense. Any more than that wouldn't have been right or believable. I'm glad the scenes at the end of these two chapters felt right to you. 😌

That's answered briefly in the next chapter. Patrizia and Paolo didn't even know Dani and Giaco were together yet, so in a way there was less to explain.

Yep, it's a rough patch da Ferrero and no mistake. Let's see what the three of them can ultimately rescue from all of this...

The next morning, Daniele slipped out of bed to use the bathroom while Giacomo was still sleeping. By the time other boy sat up in bed, rubbing his dark eyes, Daniele already had his shorts on and was squirming into his blue tie-dye t-shirt. “Buongiorno,” Giacomo mumbled with a sleepy smile. “Why are you so keen this morning?” “I didn’t sleep well,” Daniele replied, which was true enough. “I got tired of lying in bed, that’s all.” Without further ado, he flung open the shutters on

Just so we're clear, I wasn't meaning to comment prematurely on the depth or sincerity of Giaco's feelings. I just felt that, in relation to what he wants or appears to want, his actions have been fairly consistent since the disco...? That doesn't necessarily invalidate the wider concerns Marco and Dani may have about his character.

It depends on where you stand on Giaco at this point in the story. Obviously Dani’s doubts are not without cause, as reflected back to him by Marco’s outburst. I promised there would be a reckoning in relation to Giaco’s feelings and motivations. Marco has, perhaps, fired the starting pistol…

That is the correct answer.

Or possibly, if it is Marco, he could have returned to investigate after following Dani and Giaco to Sambuco in ch.6 and encountered the villains that way. You’re certainly making rapid progress through this story. I surmise you must be enjoying it and/or are working extra hard to get caught up before I finish publishing the latest one!

Yes, Dani is doing some proper sleuthing! But, stay tuned - this is about to become Dani and Giaco's story on a much more definitive level. Your early impressions of Giaco are interesting. These are such early days! I think it's fair to say his feelings and motivations have confused and confounded my readers more than any other of my prominent characters to date.

Most of this will be answered by the story, but I can clarify a couple of points. Antonio clearly lacks an effective father figure, so he feels favoured by Ettore 'taking an interest' in him by employing and training him. I didn't mean to suggest anything more that. Whatever made Antonio the way he is, it goes back to before he met Ettore. No, Antonio has not molested Giacomo, although it appears he may have had a narrow escape here.

Genuinely most of this book has not been overly concerned with painting pictures. I’ve done that so many times before. A couple of you have mentioned this but, as of now, I’m not so convinced that Giaco is unsure of what he wants? Dani’s the one with the doubts. Still, more to follow…

Oh, you and me both! Well, apart from that one poor girl who made a play for me when I was 17/18… thankfully she moved on… 😬 And Claudia’s tormenting of Dani is only just beginning!

Ohhh, I came soooo close to writing "Foul Filippo and the Swifts by Daniele Ferrero" and posting it here as a prelude to this tale! I'm grateful to everyone who gave this story a go. Maybe my reputation preceded me (?!?). I wrote Dani the Hero with a young main character and minimal (or shall we say 'very subtle') gay content as a dry run to writing an actual children's novel (obviously thematically very different). My goal for that one remains mainstream publication, although not as James Carnarvon! I still haven't managed to get an agent to look at it, but I recently gave it to a beta reader who gave me some really helpful and insightful feedback and, with the benefit of a year's perspective, I will give it a partial rewrite once I've finished editing and posting my current Ravello tale. Dani's journey to maturity that he starts here continues in the stories that follow it, right up to my current in-progress tale. About Giacomo - I like your thinking...

Thank you again, I've really enjoyed reading your reactions and comments. I write almost every story feeling like it's going to be the last one. I wrap up my main storylines, but the world I'm writing in never 'ends', and there's often someone or something left I can explore if and when inspiration takes me. All it needs is an idea.

If I could give that two hearts, I would!

They were 15/16. Entirely different. 😉

What is, though? Is there consensus? I've wondered. 🤣

Daniele awoke early to the fresh morning light. It suffused the walls of the tent with a gentle, emerald-green glow. He turned onto his side and watched his friend for a while. Giacomo slumbered on, his chest rising and falling gently. He lay facing Daniele, one arm tucked under his pillow and one lying loosely by his side. Daniele’s eyes roved over his delicate eyelashes, his slightly mussed hair and his bare shoulders poking out from underneath the blanket they had shared overnight. To Da

Yeah - referring back to my response in ch.9 where I talk about the structure, ‘developing the relationship’ ended up being about how Toto and Michele work together to solve a crisis, looking beyond just themselves, and how it crystallises Toto’s feelings about his future. You’ll see where all that ends up in ch.12. Bit muddled maybe but there you go!

The short stories are seven years after Firefly; plus two again makes this 2017. I’ve thought about it, but I don’t plan to acknowledge Covid directly in my continuity, if I write that far (I’m currently at 2019). I suppose some of the consequent changes to the world would need to feature anyway to be realistic. But for Toto the experience of going to University would have to be the full-bodied residential experience, I think, with all the new life experiences that entails.

To avoid a clone of The Summer of the Firefly I had a different structure in mind: Act One to set the scene and introduce a threat in the form of a possible rival; Act Two to resolve the threat; Act Three to ignite the relationship and then, finally, Act Four to develop the relationship a little beyond it starting. I was very happy with the story up to this point. Whether I really succeeded with the final act you’ll have to judge for yourself!

I don't think Chiara and Davide meant to put that pressure on Michele, but nonetheless that's what he took from the conversation. Insensitivity and assumption rather than denial. Surrogacy? Interesting question. Don't know!

Yes, Dani's emotional radar is his superpower. On the last question... you've got me there. I don't know at what age you can start buying alcohol in Italy, but it's probably not 16. Toto was winding Chiara up and she knew it; her reaction was primarily that of a mother, so the question of whether or not she could legally sell him beer didn't quite arise.

I don't think that made you a twisted teen, just a horny one! It was fun to bring Sharon back. Chapter one of The Summer of the Firefly feels so separate to everything else I've written. It gives more continuity to Gianni's life to incorporate elements from his pre-Ravello days.

Sorry for the late replies, all. I was at a stadium concert in another city last night - a rare event indeed! A key concern of theirs was to find somewhere they could be alone where it wouldn't seem odd to Patrizia and Paolo - hence the camping trip as a pretext, rather than just saying "oh, we're going to sleep at Giaco's empty apartment tonight", which might indeed have seemed a little strange. 😅 Well, thank you. Of course, this is not just a story about two boys consummating their relationship. There will be some fall-out from these events, which will be explored shortly. Who really finds their life partner at 13/14? But, for the moment, they seem to have accepted each other, and that's what matters in the here and now. I'm glad it rang true, because I didn't experience it myself at that age. A huge part of character-driven writing is trying to put yourself in the shoes of other characters and imagine how their experiences might shape their choices and emotional reactions. As to the accelerated timescale, well... many stories rely on a certain number of coincidences to move forwards. Arguably, this one does more than most, with the crime subplot driven by a series of accidental glimpses and overheard conversations at exactly the right time, and the swift progression of Dani and Giaco's relationship enabled by this slightly bizarre co-sleeping arrangement that happened to be in place at the right time! The trick as a writer is to tell the story well enough that nobody notices... Oops, I shouldn't have said that. I should not have said that. 😅 Given how young Dani and Giaco are, the real struggle for me in writing the final scene of this chapter - and the previous one - was in trying to make the events appropriately monumental for Dani and Giaco themselves without taking it to creepy levels. It needed to be about their relationship, not titillating the reader. One of the ways I managed it in editing was actually by making both scenes slightly longer, writing in more dialogue to keep it all in character and to emphasise the tentative and awkward nature of the whole business. I couldn't keep writing scenes like this for too many chapters. It's not the focus of my storytelling, and it would exhaust me. Not everyone in a love triangle can be a winner, but this story is not over yet. If there's any chance I can turn you around into supporting (or at least accepting) Dani and Giaco as a couple, whether or not that's how things play out by the end, then I've succeeded. However, you are right to point out the little doubts that float back into Dani's mind from time to time. Hmm, yes. I was in two minds about that line. It was a good way of cutting away from the scene before it got too explicit, but it reads as high romance, which isn't quite the tone I have been going for with these two. I decided to let it go in the end. Thank you @starboardtack! Glad to know you're still following my stories.