A Virtual Love
Legend Press
For Jeff Brennan, juggling multiple identities is a way of life. Online he has dozens of different personalities and switches easily between them. Offline, he shows different faces to different people: the caring grandson, the angry eco-protester, the bored IT consultant.
So when the beautiful Marie mistakes him for a famous blogger, he thinks nothing of adding this new identity to his repertoire. But as they fall in love and start building a life together, Jeff is gradually forced into more and more desperate measures to maintain his new identity, and the boundaries between his carefully segregated personas begin to fray.
In a world where truth is a matter of perspective and identities are interchangeable, Jeff finds himself trapped in his own web of lies. How far will he go to maintain his secrets? And even if he wanted to turn back, would he be able to?
Read more about A Virtual Love, or buy it on Amazon.
On the Holloway Road
Legend Press
- Winner, Luke Bitmead Writers’ Bursary
- Shortlisted, Dundee International Book Prize
“A beautifully written story about friendship and the longing for adventure in an increasingly demystified world, and the eternal question of what life is all about.”
— Zoe Jenny, best-selling Swiss author of The Pollen Room.
“He writes beautifully, making the mundane extraordinary and the everyday fascinating.”
— Sam Mills, best-selling author.
Read more about On the Holloway Road, or buy it on Amazon.
Short stories
I’ve had dozens of short stories published in various magazines and collections. Here’s a selection:
- The Woman on the Other Side of the Wall published in Storgy
- The Road to Dexit published in Our School Stories
- Pops published in The First Line
- Hunting for Crabs published in an anthology by Hearst Magazines as a result of coming second in the Bath Short Story Award
- Inferno published in Volume II of Spark: A Creative Anthology
- Stealing Oranges published in Nottingham 2012 Short Story Anthology
- Actress published in Stations: Short Stories Inspired by the Overground Line
- Sanctuary published in literary art book Still
- Are We There Yet? published in Sentinel Champions #8
- Moving Forward published in Greenacre Writers Anthology
- Night Bus published in Issue 13 of Smoke
- Postcards from a Previous Life published in the collection Naked Thighs and Cotton Frocks and other stories
Essays & journalism
Hundreds of articles published in my time as a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal and since then as a freelancer. Some examples:
- In Praise of a Nomadic Life: essay about my years of living and working on the road full time
- Can Money Buy Happiness?: feature article in which I interview experts about the links between money and happiness
- The Inner Workings of the Executive Brain: roundup of research on human decision-making
- Say Goodbye to Passwords: an early look at the world of biometric security
- The Cold Truth About Emotional Investing: article on the role of emotion in investing
- The Gender Gap: feature article on health differences between men and women
- How to Calculate Your Savings Rate: personal finance advice
- Is there a Doctor in the House?: article on the expanding role of nurse practitioners
- Know When to Give Up: article on failed small businesses
Essays and other non-fiction include:
- Death by Preservation published in Post Road
- Things to say about a book you’ve never read published in Booth
- For and against DRM published in The Author magazine
- Home published in Post Road
- Tainted published in the book Quarter Passed: Collected Works from Twentysomethings Around the World
- What is the Soul of Socialism? published in Monthly Review Vol 57 No 3, winner of the 2004 Daniel Singer Millennium Prize
Guest posts
I’ve contributed essays and guest posts to a variety of blogs over the years. Again, just a selection:
- The 5 Keys to Telling a Better Story published on Tinder-Box
- How to make a living as a writer published on the Good Housekeeping blog
- Use your dreams to be endlessly creative published on WriteToDone
- Are you a shallow or a deep reader? published on Read.Learn.Write
- Write for the Judge published on Funds for Writers
- The two letters that will help you write faster published on The Renegade Writer
- The limits of social media published on Negative Press
- Contributed to Roz Morris’s series The Undercover Soundtrack
Book reviews
I’ve reviewed hundreds of books on this site—click here for a full alphabetical list. Here are a few reviews I’ve written for other magazines, literary reviews and websites:
- A Tall History of Sugar reviewed on Litro
- Slave Old Man reviewed on OZY Books
- First Time Solo reviewed in Shiny New Books
- The Killing Fields of Inequality reviewed in Review 31
- The Hired Man reviewed in The Puritan
- The Interpretations reviewed in The Bottle Imp
- Explore Everything reviewed in Review 31
- Once We Had a Country reviewed in The Puritan
- The Gospel According to Cane reviewed in Switchback