To read the first chapter, click here.

The book can be delivered to you in two different ways:

1. by downloadable file (80mb) - we send you a link to download the file from

2. by CD - we send you a phyical CD to your address - the price includes postage and packaging

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(Just like) El Cid's Bloomers - downloadable file

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(Just like) El Cid's Bloomers - CD (includes p&p)

The background to '(Just like) El Cid's Bloomers' is a little complicated.

It really started with a friend in Brussels, originally from Chesterfield, called Alister Greaves when I was writing my Hull-based gangster thriller called 'The Dance of the Pheasodile' in the early summer of 2008. "You should find out which other artists are working around Hull," Alister counselled me. "You might be surprised. Hull City are doing well [they were just about to be promoted to the Premier League] - the place is probably buzzing."

And this from a guy who actually knows Hull. Buzzing? Artists?

Oh, well. Give it a try.

I contacted Nick Quantrill who is a great Hull-based crime fiction writer and he pointed me towards several other writers working in the area, including Danny Birch and Rich Sutherland (from Waterstones), and towards ThisisUll, an award-winning independent website which promotes all forms of art in Hull, especially poetry and music. Rich gave me a long list of writers associated with Hull, most of whom I had never heard of, and suggested that I contact City Arts News which distributes 'what's ons' for the area. The contact at City Arts News gave me a list of poets. Somebody mentioned Edwina Hayes (probably Cilla at ThisisUll). Edwina recommended Holly Taymar, David Ward Maclean, Abbie Lammas and Joe Solo. Nick Quantrill also recommended Joe Solo (with whom he had shared a house at one time) and James Waudby.

It didn't take me long to work out that there were probably hundreds of published artists associated with Hull, some of them exceptionally good, most well worth a scan.

Time to identify, promote and showcase such a wonderful bunch of people and the source of much pleasure. Time to create The A63 Revisited, in fact.

At the time, Joe Solo had recently released 'Me & Billy The Kidd." I wrote a review of it and sent him a copy, mentioning that I knew Nick Quantrill. Joe responded warmly and we entered into an almost daily e-mail exchange, continuing through the composition of his next album 'Potter's Field'. In the process, Joe unblocked a book I was having real trouble with ('The Blue Food Revolution' - completed in June 2009 and gaining some enthusiastic reviews), so I dedicated it partly to him.

I ended up owning Joe's entire published work (and he is a prolific songwriter) and finding that I never tired of his music, partly because it is brilliant, and partly because his spare and austere treatments, with minimal arrangement, leave nothing cloying behind.

As I finished 'The Blue Food Revolution' which is a highly complex magical-realist philosophical text designed in Belgian brochure format (back-to-back novellas), I thought "I have never written a light romantic comedy. What about one of those using Joe's music / lyrics to provide a convincing background to a story about a Hull-based singer-songwriter?"

I approached Joe expecting him to say "Don't feel comfortable with that." Instead he said, "Why not?" and pointed me to a source of all of his published lyrics.

The book shot off the page and wrote itself inside thirty days - well, it's a novella rather than a full-blown novel (it will be just about 125 pages in paperback). I sent Joe some early chapters and he said that he really liked them. I sent them to Nick Quantrill too and he gave them the thumbs-up as well.

So, here it is, in its proud e-book format (maybe the world's first musical e-novel fiction), and it goes something like this:

Jake Pembleton is a Hull-born singer-songwriter who once killed a man. This doesn't make him the East Riding folk-singing Yorkshire Ripper of CrackTown's famous song, but it still plays on his conscience.

Now he is in real trouble. Ever since returning home to his wife and kids to find his suitcases parked outside his front door, Jake has been holed up in that wild and lawless part of Hull known as 'The Avenues' with a springy nineteen year old groupie who is so sexy that she nearly gives him a heart attack each time she steps out of the shower.

Jake's only hopes are Harry, his wife's new boyfriend who keeps her sane, and that he will never meet his Kirkella-dwelling parents-in-law again. Beyond that, he just sits there clutching his guitar, writing his songs, loving his girl, and praying for better days and relief from a day job he is too ashamed of to talk about.

I hope you enjoy it.

Tim Roux (also MD of Mud Valley) - 30 July 2009

The book can be delivered to you in two different ways:

1. by downloadable file (80mb) - we send you a link to download the file from

2. by CD - we send you a phyical CD to your address - the price includes postage and packaging

Item		Value	VAT	Total
		£5.99	£0.00	£5.99
(Just like) El Cid's Bloomers - downloadable file

Item		Value	VAT	Total
		£9.99	£0.00	£9.99
(Just like) El Cid's Bloomers - CD (includes p&p)