Belle Nash and the Bath circus - William Keeling

An hilarious caper through Regency Bath - wherein justice and bigotry collide with a bump

Following on fromBelle Nash and the Bath Souffl, this second adventure in The Gay Street Chroniclessees our hero return to Bath overcome by love and confusion, only to learn how great is the suffering of others.

At the end of his last adventure, Belle was banished for four years to the island of Grenada. It is now 1835, and he is back in the city he grew up in and adores, but misses the love he left behind in the Caribbean.

His heartache leads to personal mishaps when he meets Pablo Fanque, the Black equestrian acrobat from Norfolk who longs to set up his own circus. As a well-loved figure in Bath, Belle uses his influence to try and help, but has to run the gauntlet of Lord Servitude, the most hated man in England and a die-hard supporter of slavery.

As ever, William Keeling's whimsical tale brings Belle, his gay hero, into a situation where comedy does not obscure stark moral issues of prejudice and bigotry that are as alive today as they were in Regency times.