When was the right time to tell someone that silver flames were shooting from their hair? And that your own tranquil green desired nothing more than to tangle with them, if only it could escape a malevolent orange flare hounding your every move? Over-stressed businessman Charles Heyer is not like most people. With a rare medical condition that scrambles the senses, he experiences emotions as flashes of colour, giving them the power to disrupt, dismay, or delight. Alone in his over-vivid world, a devastating bereavement leaves him mentally scarred and recuperating on the picturesque French island of Ré where, through a chance encounter and a good deed, he is introduced to Florian, a flirty local salt farmer. What with trying to protect the island salt cooperative from a corporate takeover and keeping a watchful eye on his errant grandfather, handsome Florian is not as carefree as he appears. Falling in love with this odd Englishman is as unexpected as it is welcome. Both exploring new feelings, the lazy days of summer stretch out for miles until a visitor from Charles’s London life throws their peaceful idyll into a kaleidoscope of chaos. And, all of a sudden, the island’s glorious palette of colour turns several shades darker.

Low tides threw up all kinds of unexpected and random treasures. Wedding bands, hauls of driftwood, old bones worn smooth. Jaded oyster fisherman, Nico La Forge, had seen them all. Or so he believed. Until cold, bedraggled, beautiful Éti Salvador washed up on the shore. Nico had never been in love. Wasn’t even looking for love. With the body of a revolutionary hero and the face of the devil, Nico was the sort of man your mother warned you to stay away from. But then, Nico had never come across an extraordinary individual like Éti Salvador before, divebombing the emotional wasteland of his heart and shaking it like a maraca. And, overnight, everything changed. (This queer romance features a relationship between a pansexual man and a trans woman.)

Caspian Pumkin-Watts is at the end of his rope. Miserably divorced and facing a career crossroads, when he’s offered a chance to spend nine months filming a reality TV show on a French holiday island, he grabs it with both hands. There are only two problems. His co-star is his ex-husband, and the producer is Caspian’s replacement in his ex-husband’s bed. Max La Forge of La Forge Oyster Farms knows he’s peculiar. He has a penchant for blue rubber and only drinks from a blue mug. He loves driftwood and seashells and hates being touched without his permission. Living alone in his little octagonal house suits him perfectly, until he finds a young Englishman unconscious on his driveway. Inexplicably drawn to the stranger, he sets out on a romantic exploration which turns his whole world upside down. Author’s note: as always, I write with a light touch, but please heed the trigger warnings for anxiety disorder and deliberate self-harm (on page).