Darren Charlton

For You

Dear Reader

Thank you so much for your interest in Wranglestone, a love story between two boys set in the American wilderness fifteen years after a zombie apocalypse.

When I was growing up in the 80’s, the only way I stood a chance of seeing myself (or future self) reflected in books and film, was in the troubled adult worlds of Joe Orton and Edmund White, when all I needed was for Tom Sawyer to fall in love with Huck or Luke Skywalker to swing across that chasm with Han.

For my debut I wanted to give LGBTQ+ teens not an issue based or coming out story, but their very own adventure and for other readers, a coming of age thriller and mystery that just happens to have a gay relationship at its heart.

Inside this, all my loves and preoccupations are on display; the national parks of America I’ve spent so much time exploring, winter and snow, the science fiction as social allegory works of Matheson (I am Legend) and the widescreen worlds of film classics like True Grit. 

So, Brokeback Mountain meets Walking Dead, for teens!

I hope you enjoy! dx

Wranglestone

The National Park Escape Program offers sanctuary from a world filled with the Restless Dead. The island homes of Lake Wranglestone are safe, until the lake freezes over. Then, nothing stops them from crossing the ice…

Peter has never really felt at home in a place where practicality and grit are valued above all else. He’s nothing like wrangler, Cooper – the boy he’s always watched from afar. But when he is ordered to join Cooper out on the mainland to herd the Dead from their shores before the lake freezes over, they find more than just each other.

There, they unearth a dark secret about Wranglestone’s past. One that forces the pair to question everything they’ve ever known.

Wranglestone is published on the 6th of February 2020 by Little Tiger Group imprint, Stripes and is now available for pre order. Sequel, Wranglestone Part II, Exodus, follows in 2021.

Buy here…

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