The Homeless Heart-throb

by Crystal Jeans

How funny! How dysfunctional. This is what it really means to be British, she thought. Everybody separate behind their walls and everybody drinking

Dennis has been carrying a torch for Gareth Moon since school; Sez conducts a psychological experiment with himself and two jam-jars the subjects; Estela spends sultry summer afternoons observing her neighbours over the fence; Hatima searches for an errant octogenarian in the local hostelries... Each of them encounters Monsterberry Crush, the local vagrant, until snapshot by snapshot his story is told.

Set in various homes, streets, parks and a nearby residence for the demented elderly, The Homeless Heart-throb is a journey into contemporary Wales lit up with the full gamut of human relationships: platonic, romantic and sexual.

256 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 1, 2019

About the author

Crystal Jeans was raised in Cardiff. She has various poems published online and in print, including a pamphlet, 'Just Like That' by Mulfran Press, which features poems drawing from her experience as a carer for the elderly. Her short stories, 'Split Me in Two, Gareth Moon' and 'My Bukowski' have appeared in the New Welsh Review (the first of these shortlisted for the Bridport Prize). She lives with her young daughter and numerous animals. She also writes a blog: https://crystaljeans.wordpress.com/ and has a Facebook author page. Don't bother trying to engage her on Twitter - she's crap at it.

Reviews

[Lel Budge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where do I start? This has to be one of the more unique reads I’ve had. Set in a small neighbourhood in Wales, this is a collection of seemingly separate stories, but each has a link…..The Monsterberry Crush…..a homeless man who is never without alcohol.

There is a death, a woman with a sexual fantasy about the pee soaked Monsterberry, an artist who sits watching her neighbours, a care home for elderly dementia patients and a carer at the end of her tether, a shit soaked adult nappy, a goldfish and a social experiment with jars of rice.

This is full of human interactions in all their glory, eccentric, emotional, completely dysfunctional, grim, gritty and so very funny…..so real and utterly compelling, this will stay with me for a long time.

Thank you to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for the opportunity to participate in this blog tour and for the promotional materials and a free copy of the book and this is my honest, unbiased review.

[Katherine Stansfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant book of linked stories: funny, moving, shocking but ultimately uplifting. Jeans' prose is fantastic and for a slim book it packs a punch.

[Alice Code · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yessssss

[Haley The Caffeinated Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review and Rating to come

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent read. Fantastic Welsh contemporary writing at its best. Highly recommended.