Best Book Publishers UK | Austin Macauley Publishers
Gate-Crashers-bookcover

By: Dave Spence

Gate-Crashers

Pages: 256 Ratings: 5.0
Book Format: Choose an option

*Available directly from our distributors, click the Available On tab below

It’s Christmas 1984 in Manchester and seventeen year old Nick Hopper has devastating news on his mind.


Rather than reveal his tragedy to school mates in their gloomy old pub, Nick seeks a change of heart and goes to a trendy hotspot where life gets in the way of death when a beautiful girl writes on the back of his hand urging him to seize the day and choose life!


Along with his carefree best friend Heff, Nick embarks on the greatest night of his life gate-crashing a lavish house party to pursue the girl of his dreams, Jasmine.


Welcomed into the in-crowd’s heady ‘sex, drugs and pop music’ party world, Nick is forced to face his demons and discover who his real friends are when to win Jasmine’s heart he unwittingly throws the wildest New Year's Eve house party ever!

Dave Spence is a Manchester-based creative director whose advertising headlines are as short and punchy as they need to be. Ironically he discovered a passion for writing much more when his fiancée, Angie, encouraged him to enter a national writing competition for which he was awarded first prize and a dream holiday for two to the Caribbean. This amateur literary success prompted Dave to start writing his heart-warming, tear-jerking, laugh-out-loud, homage to the eighties: Gate-Crashers.

Customer Reviews
5.0
13 reviews
13 reviews
  • Carl Bridge

    Bloody awesomeness Manchester at its best!

  • Angela Kitson

    Thoroughly enjoyed this trip back to the 80s, it brought back so many fond memories of growing up in Manchester. Beautifully written and gripping right up to the very end. Can’t wait for Nick Hopper to return!

  • Jake Shepherd

    Great Read, couldn’t put it down! Can’t wait for the sequel.

  • Paul Maguire

    A fantastic rip-roaring ride through mid 80's suburban Manchester. An adolescent coming of age tale that took me right back to my own teenage years.

  • Eileen

    A fancy trip back in the time of the 80's. If so you will love this book. Had me crying and laughing in equal measure. It's a brilliant read and looking forward to part 2!

  • Tracey Whittaker

    80’s Pop culture, Love stories, bromances, heartbreak & humour.
    Refreshingly entertaining!

  • Paul Brook

    Excellent - It made me laugh, it made me cry.

  • Mick Middles

    Dave Spence’s luminous word-of-mouth novel sits belligerently within a time-capsule of Christmas 1984. Indeed, the eighties had been unleashed and the story spits and pops with all the fizz and colour and sound that defines that sadly lost era. Oddly, it is set in the rather less colourful South Manchester suburb of Sale, just on the outside of edgier Stretford. To some extent, this detachment adds to the energy and pace of the tale. If it can happen here, where elegant houses with pristine lawns extend to touch crackly drug-fuelled estates, it can happen anywhere.

    The hero, Nick is not-so-loosely based on the ghost of the author’s young days. Subsequently, it’s difficult not to imagine him adorning leg-warmers and wrap-around scarves, such were the gentle affectations of the day. In the background, naturally, one hears the glorious pop of ABC, The Human League, Tears for Fears, Madonna…endlessly extending in to 12 inch jam outs. People of a certain age can simply slot in their own evocative soundtrack. Rather than venturing into the Manchester of legend - The Hacienda - the author chooses to stay local, injecting this warming though Godless tale into large pubs and dingy ‘take-aways’ that remain in place to this day. The book soon gathers pace when Nick’s mother unwisely hands him the Christmas keys to her beloved Porsche. Of course, one sense absolute disaster…and it is absolute disaster that duly arrives at the book speeds to a incident packed finale. Does Nick finally get the girl of his dreams? I cannot say, but the tumble of lust, romance, violence and ghostly sounds of a lost and beloved era, will remain with me…at least until the second instalment arrives in my eager hands.

Write a Review
Your post will be reviewed and published soon. Multiple reviews on one book from the same IP address will be deleted.

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience and for marketing purposes.
By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies