Gavin is currently writing his second book, The Gay Apocalypse: Queer Life and Culture in Vienna 1900. It is due to appear in print in 2027, published in English by Constable (an imprint of Little, Brown) and in German by Molden (an imprint of the Austrian-based Styria Buchverlage). The book draws on fresh archival research, including Habsburg protocol, police files, letters and diaries, to form a lavish portrait of the age. Broadening its scope beyond the city’s instantly familiar names, it forms a passionate and, at times, salacious account of Vienna’s aristocracy and middle class, as well as focussing on the lives of the city’s poor and disenfranchised.

A Home for All Seasons, Gavin’s first book, was published to wide acclaim in 2022. The paperback is now in its sixth edition. A work of narrative non-fiction, it launched at Hay, when it was one of the House & Garden picks of the Festival. Events followed in Pembridge, Gavin’s home village, and at Wigmore Hall, as well as bookshops and festivals nationwide. Features appeared on Inigo, Sphere and in Herefordshire Living, along with interviews on Times Radio, Monocle 24 and BBC local radio in Hereford and Worcester, Cornwall and Gloucestershire.

‘A fascinating trip into the rural past.’ – House and Garden

‘A tender and illuminating history of an overlooked world.’ – Horatio Clare

‘Truly a revelation on every page.’ – Petroc Trelawny

‘A wide-ranging meditation on place and past.’ – Literary Review

‘A richly textured book, replete with illuminating discoveries and observations.’ – Country Life

‘Charming — a love-letter to home, history, and nature.’ – Leah Broad

‘A moving, memorable book about how we make our lives inside architecture, and how we are changed in turn by the places we call home. With passion and precision, Gavin Plumley pushes the boundaries of memoir and scholarship and shows that the chronicle of a house can contain the grand history of a whole world as well as the sweet, urgent story of a life: all that intimacy within the vastness of historical time.’ – Richie Hofmann