Reign on Cloud Nine.

Book excerpt: The UK's answer to Maupin's, `Tales of the City.' Cloud Nine takes us on a brave, breathless and bawdy romp through a world of gutsy glamorous drag queens, and cut throat gangsters. When the world has turned its back on you, there is one place you can go to find family, Cloud Nine. The newest nightclub on London's South Bank and the epi-centre of a new purposely built gay village. Its creator, one time international drag star Trixie Lix; queen of the village and Momma to all that work there. There's Tye from Birmingham, the thirty something manager who's starting a new life after the homophobic murder of his life partner. Then we have Alf a six foot, Afro-Caribbean lovesick doorman. We also marvel at the ageing foul mouthed cleaner, Joan, who is fiercely protective over her friends and the family at Cloud Nine. The latest of the Cloud Nine family is Mickey, a troubled teenager trapped by his gangster father, Jimmy Loney, into a life of violent crime and sexual abuse. We also get to meet the sharp wit of Lady Alice `Nana Love' Lovett, the anti-establishment Lady of Little Munch, and her vengeful niece Lady Victoria. Families can be formed in the most unusual of places, Trixie and her family at Cloud Nine take us on an explosively funny journey, with more plot than a vegetable garden, their story will make you laugh and cry, but will definitely make you want to visit.... CLOUD NINE...The home of the misfit. Cloud Nine is like a gritty, sequined, urban Jackie Collins. (Samantha Tongue-Editor)