Alexis Hall

Alexis Hall's novels barely look as though they came from the same desk, which is rather the point. An English writer published since 2013, Hall moves between contemporary romantic comedy, Regency fantasy and gaslamp detective fiction without settling anywhere for long. Boyfriend Material (2020) sends the disgraced son of two rock stars into a staged relationship with an ethical barrister, and was picked as a best book of 2020 by Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and the Washington Post. Pansies (2016), fourth in his Spires series, returns a successful gay man to South Shields, the northern town he escaped, and to the boy he bullied at school. Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble (2022) puts an anxious, spiralling student on a televised baking competition. Mortal Follies (2023) is narrated by Puck and turns a curse loose on Regency society. The Affair of the Mysterious Letter (2019) rebuilds Holmes and Watson as a reckless sorceress and a straight-laced soldier in a city of many gods. He won a RITA Award in 2016, has three Lambda nominations, keeps his personal details out of public view and answers to any pronouns.