Strong Enough


Melanie Harlow - 2017
    I wasn’t looking for Derek Wolfe.I wasn’t looking for anybody. All I wanted was to start a new life in America. But when I found myself stranded here with no place to go, he came to my rescue, offering me a place to stay.He’s smart, successful, and sexy as hell—I can barely sleep knowing he’s right down the hall. And when the chemistry between us explodes one night with fierce, fiery passion, it’s hard to deny there’s something real there.But he does.He says he was drunk. He says it was a one-time thing. He says he’s not into guys and what we did meant nothing.He’s lying. Because it happened again, and again, and again. And it’s better every time. I know we could be good together, and I want the chance to try, but I’m done hiding. If he’s not strong enough to admit the truth, I’ll have to be strong enough to walk away.

The Beauty That Remains


Ashley Woodfolk - 2018
    Death wants to tear them apart.Autumn always knew exactly who she was—a talented artist and a loyal friend. Shay was defined by two things: her bond with her twin sister, Sasha, and her love of music. And Logan always turned to writing love songs when his love life was a little less than perfect.But when tragedy strikes each of them, somehow music is no longer enough. Now Logan can’t stop watching vlogs of his dead ex-boyfriend. Shay is a music blogger struggling to keep it together. And Autumn sends messages that she knows can never be answered.Despite the odds, one band's music will reunite them and prove that after grief, beauty thrives in the people left behind.

This Is Me


FINN - 2019
    The weight of a decision—of a truth he was still trying to accept.Starting to fall in love with his best friend wasn't helping. His best friend being a guy... that could be a problem.

Rock


Anyta Sunday - 2014
    There’s Lila, too: The other woman, the one who stole the rock-solid foundation of his life. And then . . . There’s Jace. Lila’s son. Lila’s smug, regurgitated-fish-scale-blue eyed son. All Cooper wants is to have his family back the way it once was, but there’s something about this boy that promises things will never be the same again. Sedimentary. Resisting the realities of his new life, Cooper and Jace get off to a rocky start. But rocky start or not, after hundreds of shared memories together, they forge something new. A close . . . friendship. Because friendship is all they can have. Although it’s not like they are real brothers. Technically, they’re not even stepbrothers . . . Metamorphic. But how does that friendship evolve under the pressures of life? Under pressures of the heart?

Coin Tricks


Willow Scarlett - 2016
    But beneath his scary appearance, Wire's kind and loving. He cares for his family and his dog and imagines a future with a caring man at his side.Then he catches Sid stealing soap.Sid's a cute librarian and aspiring magician, raising his sister alone and stealing when he can't make ends meet. Wire should report the theft to the cops but instead he takes food parcels to Sid, and an unlikely friendship forms. Sid is shy and scared at first, but with time he reveals his inner strength and the burning ambition that makes him the opposite of Wire's laid-back aimlessness.Wire falls hard. But he's never been anything more than disposable to men, and he can't bear to have his heart broken by his only friend. And years of trying to be different can't hide the fact that Wire was raised to be rough, to think with his fists and ask questions later. He keeps making a bad impression on Sid without meaning to, running the risk of losing Sid before they have the chance of finding something more together.They have to struggle with work and their families and the weight of the past, trying to unite their very separate lives to create something new and beautiful. Wire knows his dreams of love are just that: Dreams. Sweet but impossible.But that doesn't stop him dreaming…Coin Tricks is a standalone M/M (gay) romance novel with a Happily Ever After ending and no cliffhangers.

Like a Love Story


Abdi Nazemian - 2019
    He's terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he's gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media's images of men dying of AIDS.Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Judy has never imagined finding romance...until she falls for Reza and they start dating.Art is Judy's best friend, their school's only out and proud teen. He'll never be who his conservative parents want him to be, so he rebels by documenting the AIDS crisis through his photographs.As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won't break Judy's heart--and destroy the most meaningful friendship he's ever known.

Long Winter


Rachel Ember - 2021
    Alone, that is, except for his three devious cats, four saddle horses, and the forty-eight mustangs that roam the ranch. Robbie is preparing for yet another snowfall when he gets the last call he expected—a plea to pick up Lance Taylor from the county jail.Lance wasn’t just his little brother’s best friend, he was a part of the family. Then, one night, after Lance asked Robbie for something Robbie couldn’t give, he ran away and never came back. Lance was sixteen and heartbroken when he left his middle-of-nowhere hometown. Six years later, he’s at rock bottom with nowhere else to go, and no one to turn to but Robbie, the man Lance has been inconveniently in love with for most of his life.When Robbie offers Lance a place to stay, Lance expects a guest bedroom and awkward silences. Instead, he finds himself sharing Robbie’s one-room hayloft apartment and its single bed, while realizing that the old flame he carries for Robbie might not be so hopeless, after all.Long Winter is the first book in the Wild Ones series and has a happy-for-now ending. Robbie and Lance’s story continues in Signs of Spring.

Outtakes of A Walking Mistake


Anthony Paull - 2011
    old boy named Tyler Morris, who auditions for a student film to win the heart of Billy Greske, the school's celebrity thespian. The plan seems promising until Tyler’s bipolar best friend Jenny offers love advice and a local skater takes interest in Tyler as well. Furthering complications, Tyler's estranged mother, a clairvoyant circus clown, returns home to win back the love of her family.

Lava Red Feather Blue


Molly Ringle - 2021
    But the Highvalley witches have rarely done things the way they're supposed to. On the north Pacific island of Eidolonia, hidden from the world by enchantments, Prince Larkin has lain in a magical sleep since 1799 as one side of a truce between humans and fae. That is, until Merrick Highvalley, a modern-day witch, discovers an old box of magic charms and cryptic notes hidden inside a garden statue.Experimenting with the charms, Merrick finds himself inside the bower where Larkin lies, and accidentally awakens him. Worse still, releasing Larkin from the spell also releases Ula Kana, a faery bent on eradicating humans from the island. With the truce collapsing and hostilities escalating throughout the country, Merrick and Larkin form an unlikely alliance and become even unlikelier heroes as they flee into the perilous fae realm on a quest to stop Ula Kana and restore harmony to their island.Content warnings: Magic used nonconsensually to compel others; violent attacks, including some blood and fire; death and grief; imprisonment; untrustworthy governments.

A Little Bit Country


Brian D. KennedyBrian D. Kennedy
    But for now, he’s happy to do the next best thing: Stay with his aunt in Jackson Hollow, Tennessee, for the summer and perform at the amusement park owned by his idol, country legend Wanda Jean Stubbs.Luke Barnes hates country music. As the grandson of Verna Rose, the disgraced singer who had a famous falling out with Wanda Jean, Luke knows how much pain country music has brought his family. But when his mom’s medical bills start piling up, he takes a job at the last place he wants: a restaurant at Wanda World.Neither boy is looking for romance, but sparks fly when they meet – and soon they’re inseparable. Until a long-lost secret about Verna and Wanda comes to light, threatening to unravel everything. Will Emmett and Luke be able get past the truths they discover…or will their relationship go down in history as just another Sad Country Love Song?

Strawberry Kisses


Charlie Novak - 2020
    Tell family I’m gay2. Make giant cake for anniversary party3. Convince Connor to be my fake boyfriend for the weekend4. Try to keep my hands off Connor5. Make sure Connor doesn’t find out I’ve been in love with him for the last three yearsConnor’s Steps for Success:1. Perfect pole routine for Chrome Stars2. Continue search for perfect music3. Survive weekend with Patrick’s family without mauling him while sharing a bed4. Prevent feelings from exploding like a glitter bomb5. Make sure Patrick doesn’t find out I’ve been in love with him foreverStrawberry Kisses is a 78,000 word standalone, contemporary MM romance featuring a sweet pastry chef, sassy pole dancer, a nosy but loving family, fabulous make-up, fluffy feels, and copious amounts of cake.

Frat Wars: King of Thieves


Saxon James - 2021
    But dudes. And without all the dying. ChadBeing VP of Sigma Beta Psi is wild. I get all the benefits of being in charge with hardly any of the responsibility. Parties, pranks, and frat politics—college life has never been sweeter. Until I meet Bailey Prince.He has the face of a goddamn angel. I don’t know where he came from or why I’m so obsessed. But I do know he’s a Kappa. And our houses have a rivalry that’s written into legend.BaileyAt Rho Kappa Tau, I’m a legacy. It’s a lot of pressure, but I’ve always been responsible, never had that rebellious need to rock the boat, and I like it that way. But after a party at Sigma—the jock frat—I meet Chad Doomsen, and for the first time in my life I want to step outside my square. Our houses have always had a rivalry, but some of the guys seem to hate Chad specifically, and I don’t know why.He’s surprisingly sweet and kind. At least to me.I need to stay away. A relationship with Chad would be betraying the very legacy that brought me here.But I can’t help myself. And it seems, neither can he.

The Foxhole Court


Nora Sakavic - 2013
    He's short, he's fast, he's got a ton of potential—and he's the runaway son of the murderous crime lord known as The Butcher.Signing a contract with the PSU Foxes is the last thing a guy like Neil should do. The team is high profile and he doesn't need sports crews broadcasting pictures of his face around the nation. His lies will hold up only so long under this kind of scrutiny and the truth will get him killed.But Neil's not the only one with secrets on the team. One of Neil's new teammates is a friend from his old life, and Neil can't walk away from him a second time. Neil has survived the last eight years by running. Maybe he's finally found someone and something worth fighting for.

Hideous Beauty


William Hussey - 2020
    To Dylan’s surprise they are met with support and congratulations, and an amazing reception at their high school dance. Perhaps people aren’t as narrow-minded as he thought?But Dylan’s happiness is short-lived. Ellis suddenly becomes angry, withdrawn, and as they drive home from the dance, he loses control of the car, sending it plunging into Hunter’s Lake. Barely conscious, Dylan is pulled free of the wreck, while Ellis is left to drown.Grief-stricken, Dylan vows to discover what happened to Ellis that night and piece together the last months of his boyfriend’s life – and realises just how little he knew about the boy he loved.

The World of Normal Boys


K.M. Soehnlein - 2000
    Soehnlein captures the spirit of a generation and an era, embodied in the haunting, unstoppable voice of thirteen-year-old Robin MacKenzie, a modern-day Holden Caulfield, whose struggle for a place in the world is as ferocious as it is real.The time is the late 1970s--an age of gas shortages, head shops, and Saturday Night Fever. The place, suburban New Jersey. At a time when the teenagers around him are coming of age, Robin MacKenzie is coming undone. While "normal boys" are into cars, sports, and bullying their classmates, Robin enjoys day trips to New York City with his elegant mother, spinning fantastic tales for her amusement in an intimate ritual he has come to love. He dutifully plays the role of the good son for his meat-and-potatoes father, even as his own mind is a jumble of sexual confusion and painful self-doubt. But everything changes in one, horrifying instant when a tragic accident wakes his family from their middle-American dream and plunges them into a spiral of slow destruction.As his family falls apart day by day, Robin finds himself pulling away from the unquestioned, unexamined life that has been carefully laid out for him. Small acts of rebellion lead to larger questions of what it means to stand on his own. Falling into a fevered triangle with two other outcasts, Todd Spicer and Scott Schatz, Robin embarks on an explosive odyssey of sexual self-discovery that will take him beyond the spring-green lawns of suburbia, beyond the fraying fabric barely holding together his quickly unraveling family, and into a complex future, beyond the world of normal boys.In The World Of Normal Boys, K.M. Soehnlein has created a dazzling gem of a debut novel in the tradition of Ordinary People and A Boy's Own Story, one that sparkles with raw honesty, poetic beauty, wry insight, and a rare richness of emotion that reverberates long after the last page is read. It is a story about growing up and falling apart, of rebellion and acceptance, of unspoken lives and irreversible choices that are made.