First Shot: A Gay British Rowing Literary Romance - Fourth Revised Edition (Silverbourne British Gay Romance)

Some books are about falling in love. This one is about learning to be still enough to let it happen.

Freddy is a former club captain, quietly ousted from his old boat club, rebuilding at Mortlake Amateur ahead of Henley next summer. Andy is a Swiss-origin photographer in Fulham, recently left by his girlfriend, with a superglued drawer in his flat he hasn't opened in two years. They meet in a Richmond café one morning in early October 2024, and by the end of the month there is a rescued pub corgi asleep on the sofa between them.

First Shot is the fifth book in the Silverbourne series of gay British literary rowing romances, and the book in which the world of the series finally shows its full shape. Around Freddy and Andy: Finn and Aly (of Book 2, In Sync) as the older mirror couple, Jack the transplanted Princeton engineer at Mortlake, an Elizabethan manor in the Chilterns with a hot tub and a Bordeaux-drunk matriarch on the telephone, and the whole slow, careful geography of chosen family taking shape across Putney, Richmond, Mortlake, and the finish line at Dorney Rowing Lake.

For readers of literary queer fiction who like their rowing accurate, their houses old, and their corgis obstinate. New readers welcome; returning readers rewarded.

A writer and neoclassical composer, Alexander Paul Burton unifies his work across fiction, philosophy, and music through a sustained focus on migration, identity, and lived experience. His writing ranges from the philosophical to the absurd, drawing on mythological and fantastical frameworks, alongside literary gay romance that prioritises emotional truth and authenticity. His work has been covered in the national press.He is based in Toronto, where he lives with his partner and their corgi. He holds Swiss, Canadian, and British citizenship.Burton is a member of the Authors Guild. His works are catalogued under ISNI 0000 0005 3018 6907 and ORCID 0009-0009-7526-9753.