New novel Helios by James Lawless

I am delighted to announce that my new novel Helios has just been published. It is about an ageing Christian Brother who, disillusioned, leaves the order and moves to Spain to pursue his love of art and have a last fling at life. It’s about the nature of desire and celibacy.

In the light of recent sex scandals in the church, I wondered what it was like to have lived a celibate life without being either a predator or paedophile. My protagonist Paul Guilfoyle entered the religious life as an idealistic young man but eventually became disillusioned with the institution where his natural talents for art were proscribed, and he emerges after many years like an innocent (particularly sexually) into the world.

This novel presents the other side of the coin to the spate of media clerical lambasting as it centres on a virtuous man who joined a religious brotherhood with every good intention, only to feel duped, his life almost stolen, by the whole God thing. What is desire? What is its biological makeup? What is it that makes us human? That is what obsesses Paul on witnessing the beautiful Viviana, and he tries to find answers through the realm of art.

The blurb reads: When Christian Brother Paul Guilfoyle leaves his order after many years of celibacy, he moves to Spain to pursue his love of art and have a last fling at life. On witnessing the beautiful actress Viviana de Alonso swimming, he becomes obsessed with her beauty and the nature of desire. But when Viviana offers to pose for him in return for saving her daughter’s life in a forest fire, Paul begins to sense the actress may have an ulterior motive, and he fears he may have taken on more than he bargained for with the wily and unstable Viviana.
Available as ebook or paperback at https://shorturl.at/etZh4