Book picks similar to
Cowboys Can Fly by Ken Smith
young-adult
ya
coming-of-age
mm
Timshel
Lillian Turner - 2012
As the sheltered youngest son of a healer, Eiland of Summerton has heard of them all his life, the miserable creatures who share the great sickness brought down by the wrath of the gods. Yet unlike any of the illnesses Eiland's father treats in the village, this one is not passed by touch or cough or poison. It's given by the Cursed Ones. All it takes is three small words: I curse you.It never occurred to Eiland that a Cursed One could be young. Or handsome. Until he meets Charon, a wandering outcast who bears the Curse. One stolen kiss changes everything for Eiland and sends the two young men on a dangerous journey that neither can hope to survive—unless they set aside their differences and give in to forbidden love...
Fence #1
C.S. Pacat - 2017
Filled with raw talent but lacking proper training, he signs up for a competition that puts him head-to-head with fencing prodigy Seiji Katayama...and on the road to the elite all-boys school Kings Row. A chance at a real team and a place to belong awaits him—if he can make the cut!
When Love Is Not Enough
Wade Kelly - 2011
Jimmy Miller never intended to lead a double life starting the day he fell in love with Darian, but his parents’ divorce, fighting in school, and constantly keeping secrets for his closeted best friend and protector, Matt, force his hand. Jimmy finds the demands too great to withstand and ends it all prematurely, leaving behind an angry best friend and a shattered lover. Matt and Darian cling to one another in the aftermath of their loss, forging a new friendship immediately tested by the truths of their relationships with Jimmy that are hidden in the pages of Jimmy’s journals. Will Matt and Darian discover what truly happened to their friend? And will this tragedy birth something beautiful between them as they learn the balance between life, family, and friendship when love is simply not enough?A Bittersweet Dreams title: It's an unfortunate truth: love doesn't always conquer all. Regardless of its strength, sometimes fate intervenes, tragedy strikes, or forces conspire against it. These stories of romance do not offer a traditional happy ending, but the strong and enduring love will still touch your heart and maybe move you to tears.
Absolutely Positively Not
David LaRochelle - 2005
The problem is, Steven's not thinking girls when he's thinking sex. Could he be -- don't say it -- gay? Steven sets out to get in touch with his inner he-man with Healthy Heterosexual Strategies such as "Start Hanging Out with the Guys," and "Begin Intensive Dating." But are Steven's tactics going to straighten him out, or leave him all twisted up?Absolutely hilarious. Positively sidesplitting. But absolutely, positively NOT GAY!
Love Is In The Title
R.J. Scott - 2011
Songs that mean something to him and the people around him. Lately he has been requesting songs for the boy he watches from afar. The gorgeous dark haired blue eyed captain of the football team, Cameron.One night, and the last request, and all of Luke's secrets spill. It seems though, that he isn't the only one with secrets.
Acclamation
Vee Hoffman - 2012
Ashebrook, its warm community and the house inherited from his aunt provide a comfortable haven for Michael, but it's the friendship with neighbouring Butler family and their son Dominic that proves most rewarding. Teacher, friend, soon confidant, Michael understands Dominic's secrets more than anyone in his sheltered Catholic community, but what else can he allow himself to hope for when love offers him a second chance?
Half-Life
Aaron Krach - 2004
He lives in the exact center of center-less Los Angeles with his depressed father, Greg, and imaginative younger sister, Sandra. When Greg suddenly dies, more than everything changes and the relatively smooth orbits of family and friends are altered when Adam needs them most. In the middle of the drama, a man in uniform appears—and he is more than interested in Adam. This man, a policeman, is warm, witty and wise. He is 6 foot-something, dirty blond, and . . . well, he’s a California Boy trapped inside the body of a 38 year-old man. But how can Adam consider the possibility of a relationship when he is dealing with his father’s death, his friends’ (and his own) pre-pre-pre mid-life crises, his mother’s ambivalence, and his little sister’s need for him? Then again, how can he not?Half-Life is about being—or at least feeling—young and old at the same time. About loving, or wanting to love, but knowing that life and love are both as exuberant and seductive yet two-dimensional and illusory as a billboard along any of Los Angeles’s endless freeways.Aaron Krach has written for Time Out New York, Out magazine, InStyle, thePosition.com, CBSHealthwatch.com, The Independent Film and Video Monthly, TVTS, Oui, DOX: International Documentary Film, indieWIRE, A&U magazine Instinct, HX, The Villager, Downtown Express, and TWN (Florida). The former editor of Empire Magazine and arts editor of Gay City News, he is now the senior editor of Cargo magazine. He lives in New York City. Half-Life is his first novel.
Wonders of the Invisible World
Christopher Barzak - 2015
But when Jarrod, his former best friend, suddenly moves back home, Aidan begins to see clearly for the first time—not only to feelings that go beyond mere friendship, but to a world that is haunted by the stories of his past. Visions from this invisible world come to him unbidden: a great-grandfather on the field of battle; his own father, stumbling upon an unspeakable tragedy; and a mysterious young boy, whose whispered words may be at the heart of the curse that holds Aidan’s family in its grip. Now, Aidan must find his way between the past and the present to protect those he loves, and to keep the invisible world at bay.
Creating Chaos
Lacey Dailey - 2018
His sexual identity and close friendship with his parents has made him a target for every bully in Hillside High's student body. With less than a year to graduation, Gideon hopes to lay low and get out unscathed.In a failed first attempt at blending in, Gideon finds himself seated next to Elliott Oakley—the new kid.Following his mother's death, Elliott packs his bags and leaves small town Iowa for a fresh start in Durham, North Carolina. Making new friends was not on his agenda but when Gideon sits beside him, a frown on his face, he can't help but make conversation.Side by side in Chemistry class, Gideon and Elliott bond over a mutual hatred for teenage torment and a shared love of earning trophies. As the year progresses, their friendship evolves into something unexpected yet welcome. Their new relationship ensures they stick out like a sore thumb but when they're together, blending in doesn't seem so important anymore. Together, they have exactly what they need to survive their final months of high school.Until Elliott's past makes the journey from Iowa all the way to North Carolina, threatening to destroy their bond. Gideon and Elliott are left to wonder... is love really strong enough?
Trailer Trash
Marie Sexton - 2016
Now, instead of spending his senior year in his hometown of Austin, Texas, he’s living with his father in Warren, Wyoming, population 2,833 (and Nate thinks that might be a generous estimate). There’s no swimming pool, no tennis team, no mall—not even any MTV. The entire school’s smaller than his graduating class back home, and in a town where the top teen pastimes are sex and drugs, Nate just doesn’t fit in.Then Nate meets Cody Lawrence. Cody’s dirt-poor, from a broken family, and definitely lives on the wrong side of the tracks. Nate’s dad says Cody’s bad news. The other kids say he’s trash. But Nate knows Cody’s a good kid who’s been dealt a lousy hand. In fact, he’s beginning to think his feelings for Cody go beyond friendship.Admitting he might be gay is hard enough, but between small-town prejudices and the growing AIDS epidemic dominating the headlines, a town like Warren, Wyoming, is no place for two young men to fall in love.
The James Dean Vintage
Jess Whitecroft - 2018
Driven by social embarrassment and the anxiety that the messy truth might kill off his ninety-nine year old grandmother, Oliver finds himself ‘married’ to one James Dean Jackson. Hustler, card-counter, lapdancer, drifter – Dean is seemingly a chronic liar, a human tumbleweed incapable of putting down roots. By contrast, Oliver is as deeply rooted as the grape vines that are his livelihood. Oliver’s idea of heaven is a 1945 Chateau d’Yquem, while Dean thinks veraison is a cellphone provider and once almost did the Pinot Noir monologue from Sideways over a Laurent-Perrier Rosé. As the season unfolds and the grapes ripen, the mismatched pair begin to discover that playing the perfect husband isn’t so hard after all, especially when the other person might just have the thing you were missing all along.
Pennsylvania Station
Patrick E. Horrigan - 2018
Frederick Bailey is a quiet, cultured, closeted architect reluctantly drawn into the effort to save Pennsylvania Station from being demolished. But when he meets Curt, a vibrant, immature gay activist more than half his age, he is overtaken by passions he hasn't felt in years, putting everything he cares about--his friends, his family, his career and reputation--at risk. As the elegant old train station is dismantled piece by piece to make way for the crass new Madison Square Garden sports arena, Frederick must undergo a reckoning he has dreaded all his life. Award-winning author Patrick E. Horrigan delves into the fractured psyches of mid-twentieth-century gay men, conjuring a picture of New York City and the nation on the brink of explosive cultural change.