Two days after his birthday, a momentous first date with the man of his dreams convinces Aaron he's in love and ready for marriage. However, Aaron must first address the damage he suffered from a difficult childhood. “You aren’t super macho. More like…sweet and hot.” That‘s how Aaron’s friend and neighbor Michelle, the smartest girl in the class, describes him. She promises he’ll meet someone soon.Aaron is skilled at ignoring an unhappy childhood that left him serene on the outside and insecure, vulnerable and anxious on the inside. From middle school on, he concentrated on getting good grades and running faster but also gained more than enough experience with hopeless crushes on really nice straight classmates. Now, at the start of his last semester of high school, he’s ready for a real romance. With help from Michelle and a pooch named Daisy, he meets three seriously good-looking guys who invite him to join their running club. Daniel, Justin and Matthew are a few years older than Aaron but they quickly accept him into their social group. Life has programmed Aaron to be pessimistic but he gets his hopes up and for the first time he makes a connection with another gay guy. Aaron knows “the course of true love never did run smooth,” but he lets himself forget and believe that it will for him. Naturally, when it doesn’t he blames himself. There Was a Boy recounts a pivotal time when a teenager enters adulthood sooner than he’s ready, meets the man of his dreams and falls in love. Aaron has a lot to learn about sex and love. He’s positive he’s found the right teacher but an additional lesson awaits him and he must confront the wounds of his childhood before he can graduate to his new life.

    The son of a preacher, Tom reaches out to Joel in friendship, and their bond to each other becomes as tight as brothers. Joel's openness to his own feelings and acceptance of himself (a healthy trait instilled by his loving parents) allows him to explore some new and confusing feelings he has for Tom. His confusion clears, however, after a reckless drinking bout ends with a very public kiss from Tom. But Tom's torment of sin and self-incrimination are far from over. Common Sons, the first in a series entitled "Common Threads in the Life," is a moving tale of self-discovery, love, and finding the courage to come out and come to grips with the truth in the face of hatred and adversity.

    A boy next door. The latter dates a girl, but will that change soon? After Kevin meets Lucas, he can’t get him out of his mind. And as if life at Oak River High isn’t hard enough, Kevin has a girlfriend. In the web of mixed feelings and unjust expectations, one thing leads to another, and ultimately someone’s heart is broken.Time for Goodbyes is a sweet romance and the first novel in Jay Argent’s Oak River Boys series. It’s a story about the kind of love that isn’t always easy but is definitely worth fighting for.

    After a few sessions with his new friends Rose and Sherry at a romance book club, well, the more romances they read, the more they're convinced they can do better. And do they ever! They join their creative forces to become "Pamela Clarice," self-published romance novelist. When they look for a cover model for their first book, Dane sees the photos that will change his life. Paul Musegetes is the world's most popular romance cover model, and the most secretive. Dane soon finds himself obsessed with this supernaturally handsome man, and when he meets Paul at the Romance Writers' Ball on the Summer Solstice, he and Paul connect for one night of passion...After that night, Dane's a writing machine. He can't stop writing romances, and every story he touches turns to gold. But he also finds that he can't write anything but romances. And soon he's spending every waking moment of every day writing another after another...Then Dane finds out that this Midas touch has a heavy price. When the year is over, he'll never write again. Not a romance, not a serious novel. Nothing. Not even a grocery list. And that leaves him with only one option - find Paul, and get him to break the curse. But before he can do that, he'll have to track down Paul's equally mysterious photographer, Jackson da Vinci...

    Because he isn’t. At all. Forced to reassess his life goal at Camp Crystal Cove, it’s by sheer dumb luck he meets Landon Summers, who turns everything Archie was sure of into chaos. Poor boy turned teen heartthrob, Landon Summers, is the name on everyone’s lips. With his unexpected leap to fame, his agent advises him to keep his bi status on the down low. Not a problem! Until Landon meets Archie. Their unexpected friendship leads to an inevitable kiss, but their moment is caught in high definition and used as fuel for blackmail. If the truth gets out, Landon’s career could be over, and Archie will be forced to acknowledge the one thing he’s fought to deny. But how do you go back to your average life once you’ve experienced That Feeling When ... you’re finally happy?

    Every day, the same stunning man, riding alongside you. He seems to notice you. You could swear something's there--it almost feels as if he's reaching out... Then, one fine day, you're given the chance of a lifetime: a opportunity to finally strike up a conversation. Do you take it?Wyatt does. And he's thrust into a more beautiful, violent, emotionally-charged journey than he ever could have expected. Only time will tell if his new bond with this beautiful boy can weather the tumult and confusion that accompany early adulthood... “Mikey said things in a way that invoked visions of us spending time together in the future. I considered this while I watched the sun set out my window. Beyond houses, buildings and occasional fields, all of it racing by, I caught flickers of open water and the far-off levee holding it at bay. The next few miles were peppered with conversation borne, still, out of an inscrutable dose of caution and unfamiliarity. How does one coax something from a void? What kind of enigmatic force conjures a friendship between strangers? How fragile those first times together must be, yet with so much depending on them. For one covert second, I swelled with sadness, not just because a continued relationship with this beautifully unchained boy was so improbable, but for the tragedy of all friendships that died in infancy.”

    But at home, there is Henry, the precocious 10-year-old across the street, who eagerly befriends them both. And when Alex takes up running, there is James's friend Nathen, who unites the brothers in moving and unexpected ways.

    When seventeen-year old high school newspaper editor Jake Powell, fresh from Alabama, lands in New York City to attend Columbia University's prestigious summer journalism program, it's a dream come true. But his father, a fundamentalist Christian preacher, smells trouble. And his father is rarely wrong.Jake navigates new and unfamiliar ways "up North." Starting with his feelings for a handsome Jewish classmate named Sam. What Jake could keep hidden back home is now pushed to the surface in the Big Apple.Standing by his side are a gorgeous brunette with a Park Avenue attitude and the designer bags to match, a high school friend who has watched Jake grow up and isn't sure she's ready to let him go, and an outrageously flamboyant aunt who's determined to help Jake find the courage to accept love and avoid the pain that she has experienced. Provocative and moving, Playing by The Book is a feel-good novel about the pain and joy we encounter in the search for our own truth."In Playing by the Book, S. Chris Shirley tells a story I loved curling up with, featuring one of the most endearing teen protagonists I've read in years." --Alex Sanchez, author of The God Box and Boyfriends with Girlfriends "There's so much to admire in Chris Shirley's debut novel, but the most remarkable thing may be its voice. Jake is both earnest and skeptical, curious and guarded, and he tells his story with an endearing humility that-somehow-avoids the sarcasm that has become the norm. Playing by the Book reminds us of how rewarding it can be to climb into someone else's head."--Patrick Ryan, author of Send Me and Saints of Augustine

    Best friends. At least they used to be. But a year ago Sam cut Charlie out of his life--no explanation, no discussion, nothing. Fast-forward one year, and both Sam's and Charlie's lives are spiraling out of control. Sam has a secret he's finding harder and harder to hide, and Charlie is dealing with an increasingly absent dad and a dealer whose threats are anything but empty. As told in alternating chapters from Sam and Charlie during the sticky Florida summer before their senior year, the ex-best friends are thrown together once again when they have no one else to turn to. P. E. Ryan's Saints of Augustine is a witty, enthralling, and unforgettable novel about the power of friendship.

    He has a crappy job at Food World, a "boyfriend" who won't publicly acknowledge his existence (maybe because Pablo also has a girlfriend), and parents on the verge of a divorce. College is Dade's shining beacon of possibility, a horizon to keep him from floating away. Then he meets the mysterious Alex Kincaid. Falling in real love finally lets Dade come out of the closet - and, ironically, ignites a ruthless passion in Pablo. But just when true happiness has set in, tragedy shatters the dreamy curtain of summer, and Dade will use every ounce of strength he's gained to break from his past and start fresh with the future.

    But when his pilot father is selected for a highly publicized NASA mission to Mars, Cal and his family relocate from Brooklyn to Houston and are thrust into a media circus.Amidst the chaos, Cal meets sensitive and mysterious Leon, another “Astrokid,” and finds himself falling head over heels—fast. As the frenzy around the mission grows, so does their connection. But when secrets about the program are uncovered, Cal must find a way to reveal the truth without hurting the people who have become most important to him.Expertly capturing the thrill of first love and the self-doubt all teens feel, debut author Phil Stamper is a new talent to watch.

    Skylar hasn't uttered a single word since his mother died eleven years ago, a senseless tragedy he's grateful he doesn't have to talk about.When Skylar's father mysteriously vanishes one summer afternoon, Skylar is placed in the temporary custody of his only remaining relative, an estranged grandmother living on an Indian reservation in the middle of arid Arizona.Adapting to a brand new culture is the least of Skylar's qualms. Because Skylar's mother did not die a peaceful death. Skylar's mother was murdered eleven years ago on the Nettlebush Reserve. And her murderer left behind a son.And he is like nothing Skylar has ever known.

    He goes to school and hates it, plays football and loves it, and goes to church because it's expected. Everything in his life is right on track until an incident in the football locker room with a fellow teammate ignites feelings he didn't know he had and turns it all upside down, setting him on a life-changing journey to find out the truth about the secret he's now harboring. A secret that makes him question everything. A secret that has the potential to change the way everyone else feels about him. A secret that no one on earth knows but his best friend Sam.What's Not Broken follows the life of sophomore Eli Ridgewood on his search for truth and how it affects those around him in a poignant story of life and love and loss.

    High School sucks and so does the jerk and his pack of bullies who live to torture him. When Joey feels there is no hope left and no chance at having peace, there’s only one choice left. He’s sure the people he cares about would be better off without him anyway. Things happen for a reason, and when Luc steps in, Joey’s faced with two decisions. What will Joey’s choice be?

    the Homo Sapiens Agenda meets The Parent Trap.Beck: The Golden Girls-loving, out-and-proud choir nerd growing up in the “ass-crack of the Bible belt.” Jax: The Golden Boy, star quarterback with a slick veneer facing uncomfortable truths about himself and his past. When Beck’s emotionally fragile dad starts dating the recently single (and supposedly lesbian) mom of former bully, Jaxon Parker, Beck is not having it. Jax isn’t happy about the situation either, holding out hope that his moms will reunite and restore the only stable home he’s ever known. Putting aside past differences, the boys plot to derail the budding romance between their parents at their conservative hometown’s first-ever Rainbow Prom. Hearts will be broken, new romance will bloom, but nothing will go down the way Beck and Jax have planned. In his hilarious and provocative debut, Greg Howard examines the challenges of growing up different in a small southern town through the lens of colorful and unforgettable characters who stay with you long after the last drop of sweet tea.