We are delighted to be hosting this event with local author Anthony Shapland for his debut novel A Room Above a Shop.

A Room Above a Shop: 

When two quiet men form a tentative connection neither knows where it might lead. M has inherited his family’s ironmongery business. B is younger by eleven years and can see no future in the place where he has grown up, but when M offers him a job and lodgings, he accepts. As the two men work side by side in the shop, they also begin a life together in their one shared room above – the kind of life they never imagined possible and that risks everything if their public performance were to slip.

More than anything, A Room Above a Shop is about the search for connection: about loyalties, innocence, fear and the strength of family bonds as much as it is a tale of blending in, hiding, mimicking and deception. Unfolding in South Wales over three years during the decade of Section 28 and against the backdrop of the HIV and AIDS crisis, moral judgement and growing prejudices, this is a tender and resonant love story, and a powerful debut.

ANTHONY SHAPLAND grew up in Bargoed, South Wales. He is a writer and artist, and founder of g39, an artist-led space in Cardiff. His short story ‘Foolscap’ was shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Award and he was selected for the Hay Writers at Work programme in 2023. This is his debut.