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A Marriage Below Zero (1889), written by Alan Dale, is a pioneering work of early gay fiction and one of the first English-language novels to center a homosexual male character in a serious, tragic narrative.

The story is told from the perspective of Elsie Bouverie, a young woman who enters into what appears to be a promising marriage with the charming and refined Arthur Ravener. At first, their life together seems socially enviable—secure, respectable, and filled with the expectations of Victorian domestic happiness.

But beneath the surface, something is wrong.

Arthur grows emotionally distant, evasive, and restless. Elsie senses that she is not the true object of her husband’s affection. Gradually, she discovers the devastating truth: Arthur is romantically and physically involved with another man. In an era when homosexuality was not only taboo but criminalized, this revelation shatters her understanding of marriage, loyalty, and identity.

Rather than portraying Arthur as a villain, the novel presents him as a man trapped between societal expectations and his authentic self. The “marriage below zero” becomes a metaphor for a union devoid of warmth, passion, and truth—frozen by repression and secrecy. As scandal

Yes, this is my final offering from the upcoming ‘Devil’s Wood.’ It will be out by this summer, and if you’re hooked listening to these chapter samples, you’ll want to buy the book! Fasten your headphones for one last teaser.  – Mark

Devil’s Wood begins when two boys wander into the woods outside Lambertville, New Jersey, and uncover a strange walking stick buried in the soil. One boy feels an immediate, nameless dread and keeps his distance; the other is drawn to it, pulling it free and revealing a grim truth beneath the earth—a human skull buried alongside the object. The discovery hints at an old, unfinished wrong, and a wood that has long remembered what was done there, waiting patiently for someone to find it.

The stick first surfaces in the life of Peter Brightly, a forty-two-year-old antique dealer struggling to hold together the fragments of his life after a painful divorce. As Peter becomes increasingly attached to the object, his health, judgment, and moral center begin to erode. The wood exerts a quiet pull, the past presses closer, and Peter is forced to confront how far he is willing to go to protect his own sanity.