Nick & Greg (The Nick & Greg Books Book 1)
Gay FictionAdded on January 12, 2026
Description
Brighton in the late 1950s is a place of excitement and danger for Nick and Greg: two teenagers who meet one day after school. The town is their playground, and with all the innocence and recklessness of youth they run through its streets, uncover its secrets and discover their passionate desires for each other.
Gay life thrives in Brighton, but homosexuality is against the law and exists largely behind closed doors, invisible and unspoken. Against this backdrop, Nick seeks to expand his self-awareness through literature and a widening circle of friends. Greg though is constrained by denial, his family ties, and a pattern of increasingly self-destructive behaviour that threatens to unbalance his mind.
In Nick & Greg, John Roman Baker gives a frank, witty and authentic portrait of the lives of two boys growing up in a period when gay liberation was just a fairy tale and Oscar Wilde was a name to be feared more than any monster on a cinemascope screen.
Nick & Greg is the first book in the Nick & Greg series by John Roman Baker.
The Nick & Greg books chart the lives of two friends Nick and Greg from their first meeting at the age of fourteen one afternoon after school in late 1957, through their teenage adventures in the swinging sixties, to young maturity and the gay liberation of the 1970s.
From the outset, despite being against the law, Nick and Greg are sexually uninhibited and adventurous and seek to experience all that life and society have to offer. As time passes they find new friendships and relationship but, like two sides of one coin, they retain an inextricable bond.
Set predominantly in Brighton, the ‘gay capital of England’, the author creates a vivid kaleidoscope of the times, taking in Swinging Sixties London and post-’68 Paris, that includes many cultural reference points notably in gay literature, popular music, film and theatre as well as documenting social and political changes.
A British Tales of the City, Nick and Greg will charm, intrigue, excite and leave you longing for their next adventure.
REVIEWS
"I look forward to reading more of the adventures of these two tender tearaway queers." GScene Magazine (Nick & Greg)
"A wonderful and brutally honest job ... a special treat." Amos Lassen Reviews (Nick & Greg)
Reader Reviews
Baker, John Roman. “Nick & Greg” (“Nick & Greg Books”), Wilkinson House, 2016.The First in a TrilogyAmos Lassen Set in Brighton, England in the late 1950s, we meet Nick and Greg who themselves just met one day after school. Brighton was an exciting and dangerous place back yet they made it their playground. As they run around town with the innocence of youth, they discovered not just the secrets of Brighton but also their deep love and passionate desires for each other.They learn that there is g
Nick and Greg is one of the most compelling novels I’ve read in a while. By which I mean I became completely obsessed by the characters and binge read the whole thing in two days. Even the side characters were captivating and after Nick’s interactions with them I still cared enough to wonder what happened to them. Some of them I’d like to pop up in the later books as well. Also the ending! At first I thought it was going to be my favourite bookend ever and then *that* happened and I started read
Blast from the past part 1I am of a similar age as the main characters were at the time period used for the setting, and can relate well to the teenage development and confusion of life, family, friends, school, movies, music, plays, books, bars, toilets, streets, parks, girls, boys, balls, fountains, benches, looks, and language. Maybe it is because of multiple trips to the UK that the descriptions seem so real and the characters feel like friends and family. It is different from the scenario I
