White Trainers, Black Soil

White Trainers, Black Soil is a queer coming-of-age novel about grief, survival, and the names we choose for ourselves.

In the post-industrial valleys of South Wales, Ieuan Morgan grows up among beetles, chip wrappers, and the long shadow of his older brother, Gethin. But when Gethin dies on the train tracks, something in Ieuan splinters — and the world stops making sense in the way it used to.

What follows is a story told in soil and silence. In bruises that don’t show. In boys who kiss and vanish, and others who stay. At thirteen, Ieuan becomes a rumour. At fifteen, he’s a survivor — of violence, of gossip, of being loved the wrong way. He finds solace in insects, sketchbooks, and the slow unfolding of a relationship with Evan, a quiet boxer with his own ghosts.

From detention rooms to science fairs, from allotment kisses to miner’s cottages, White Trainers, Black Soil traces a journey not back to innocence, but toward selfhood. A boy who stops apologising for the space he takes up. A boy who once walked barefoot through rain and now walks forward — named, seen, and real.

Raw, lyrical, and rooted in working-class Wales, this is a love story — but not just between two boys. It’s about loving your own scarred skin. About what survives. And how.

Following Book One, Schloss Tannenlicht — the story of Christophe — this novel can be read on its own or as part of a quiet trilogy about longing, identity, and the slow, defiant act of becoming.