The Inverts

Crystal Jeans has had two previous novels published by Welsh women's independent Honno Press. Her first, The Vegetarian Tigers of Paradise, was shortlisted for the Polari Prize and is currently in development for film. The second, Light Switches are my Kryptonite, won Wales Book of the Year in the English language. Crystal lives in Pontypridd with her young daughter and partner.

‘An absolute *blinder* … so so funny and sexy. So excited now to read everything by Crystal Jeans’ Caroline O’Donoghue, author of Scenes of a Graphic Nature

‘A glorious celebration of queer friendship and all kinds of love. Funny, outrageous, heartbreaking and so much fun’ Kate Davies, winner of the Polari Prize

‘Hilarious, fresh and sexy, with a tale that takes the reader from Egypt to Hollywood’ Irish Independent

‘Funny, filthy and phenomenally good’ Matt Cain

‘Filthy and hilarious, this is a gloriously naughty romp of a read that also has something serious to say about queer love. I didn’t want it to end’ S.J. Watson

‘Perfect for fans of Tipping the Velvet and Gentleman Jack… a delicious and diligent piece of fiction that will provide you with enough great comebacks to last a lifetime… This is a delightful book I wish to fling at my friends with affectionate abandon' DIVA

‘By turns raucous and poignant, hilarious and shattering this is a wonder of a story’ Jess Kidd

‘This delicious romp is the sort of thing Nancy Mitford might have written if she’d been gay… wonderfully blithe, witty and moving’ Rowan Pelling, DAILY MAIL

1921: a boy, a girl, a moonlit midnight kiss.

A terrible, repulsive kiss.

Bettina and Bart have grown up as best friends, so surely they will end up together? After all, Bettina is young, rich, headstrong…. and gay. Bart is young, rich, charismatic… and also, definitely, gay. Any doubts are dispelled by, in short order: that ghastly kiss; a torrid encounter for Bettina in the school boiler-rooms; and an eye-opening Parisian visit for Bart.

Society will never stand for it. What else can they do but enter into a ‘lavender marriage’ and carry on indulging their true natures in secret? As the ’20s and ’30s whizz past in a haze of cigarettes, champagne and casual sex, Bart and Bettina have no idea that they are hurtling, via Hollywood and Egypt, Paris and London, towards tragedy and bloodshed…