Chosen and Kept, the first volume in The Circuit of Care, is now available in a newly designed pocket-book format.

The story itself has not substantially changed. This remains the book that introduces Declan and Marcus, Cillian and Aidan: four men brought together by the recurring rhythms of dialysis and bound not by blood, but by friendship, practical care and the ordinary grace of continuing to show up.

What has changed is the way the book is presented.

A new pocket-book format

The original edition was published in A5 format. This new edition has been reformatted as a 119-page pocket book, giving it a smaller and more intimate physical presence.

The change of size required the interior to be reset for the new page dimensions, but the substance of the book remains the same. This is not a rewritten or radically expanded edition. It is a more compact presentation of the original volume.

A new visual identity

The most visible change is the cover.

The earlier illustrated design has been replaced by a simpler turquoise cover built around typography and a continuous white line. The line travels across the front before gathering into a loop: a small visual expression of connection, interruption and continuity.

The new design also establishes a shared identity for The Circuit of Care. Each book will retain its own distinctive colour while using the same typography, series wordmark and white-line motif.

Together, the five covers will form a recognisable family:

• Chosen and Kept — turquoise
• Hands That Know — burnished orange
• In the Rounds — warm grey
• Bears at the Threshold — muted burgundy
• Binders, Biscuits, & Belonging — olive green

The same story, newly presented

The Circuit of Care grew from my experience of long-term haemodialysis. Its setting and characters are fictional, but the rhythms of treatment are informed by lived experience: connection and disconnection, alarms and adjustments, fluid restrictions, familiar conversations and the relationships formed through repeated hours together.

These are not stories about overcoming chronic illness. They are stories about living within it—and about the humour, queer kinship, tenderness and stubborn joy that can flourish there.

This new edition does not attempt to turn Chosen and Kept into a different book. It gives the existing book a form that better reflects the series it has become.

The revised pocket-book editions of the other published volumes will follow in due course, one book at a time.

[EXPLORE THE CIRCUIT OF CARE]

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