Author Kim C. Sturgess lives in Dartmouth and is about to release his first novel called “Another Brother Shakespeare”

It is about the imagined life of the bard’s youngest brother, Edmund.

The author grew up in Teignmouth and discovered Dartmouth’s beauty through his parents.

He spent a lot of time in London and 10 years in Qatar in the Middle East, returning to London to pursue a marketing career, then studied for a BA, ha then a PhD in English and American literature before writing books about Shakespeare as a US ‘founding father’ and ‘Sailing Around Britain’.

Kim said: “When I finished in London, I was just trying to find somewhere I felt comfortable with.

“I accidentally turned up in Dartmouth and never actually left, so I came here in 2016 and

I’ve been here now 10 years.”

Kim describes his latest book: “It tells the story of William Shakespeare's youngest brother, because most people don't realise that Shakespeare was one of four, and when he was 31, he had a 15-year-old brother, so a huge gap between them.

“William Shakespeare's the famous playwright in London, having a great life in the theatre and probably getting up to certain things which we don't want to talk about and his little brother was back in Stratford-upon-Avon, living the life of a delivery boy to his parents to his father's Glover's business, and we know very little about him in terms of the historical record so I decided I would write his story.”

“He plays on the stage, we know that, and then has a certain, shall we say, difficult relationship, including having an illegitimate child, and finally, of course, he meets his end so it's a story that hasn't been told.”

To prepare, Kim walked the Streets of Stratford-upon-Avon and the Elizabethan streets of old London for inspiration.

Although set in the 16th century, the themes are bang up to date, as Kim explained:

“We hear of young people struggling with their identity, and we hear of people being gender fluid and other interesting terms.

“I've imagined Edmund in a similar world.

“In Elizabethan London in the 1600s, when the playhouses were booming, there were eight of them running all the time every afternoon, and he was asked to dress as a girl because in those days women were not permitted onto the stage.

“All those women's parts were played by young men men with smooth faces and perhaps, shall we say slightly feminine features.”

The book explores how Edmund copes with his own sexuality and hormones while playing and dressing up as women for much of the time.

Kim explains: “These issues have existed over the millennia.

“We're aware of the fact in ancient Greece there were temples and so on, where there were large numbers of very young men who used to support the priests in various ways and when we get to Elizabethan days we have poets writing flamboyant very emotional and almost erotic poetry to other men and yet going home to their wives and children.”

Another Brother Shakespeare is out on November 19 and is available on Amazon and in bookshops.