Book picks similar to
Lazarus by Rashid Darden
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Tripping Over You: The Blue Book
Owen White - 2013
Between discovering sexuality, pleasing a strict parent, and fitting in with peers, the task of starting a relationship can seem impossible not to trip over. Add the uncertainty of whether or not you should date someone and you're in for a roller coaster of blossoming neuroses.The Blue Book is the first four chapters of an ongoing love story about how hard, and amusing, it can be to find love in unexpected places.
The Sallee Rovers
M. Kei - 2010
The Sallee Rovers, Book One of The Pirates of the Narrow Seas Trilogy is an expertly crafted swashbuckler brimming with authentic detail and fully realized portraits of life at sea, written by a tall ship sailor and internationally acclaimed poet.
Spell Bound
Jacob Z. Flores - 2015
They represent the epitome of black magic, strong, dark, and wicked, and though Mason tries to live up to his respected lineage, most of the spells he casts go awry. To make matters worse, his active power has yet to kick in. While his brothers wield lightning and harness the cold, Mason sits on the sidelines, waiting for the moment when he can finally enter the magical game. When a dead body is discovered on the football field of his high school, Mason meets Drake Carpenter, the new kid in town. Drake’s confident demeanor and quick wit rub Mason the wrong way. Drake is far too self-assured for someone without an ounce of magical blood in his body, and Mason aims to teach him a lesson—like turn him into a roach. And if he’s lucky, maybe this time Mason won’t be the one turned into an insect. Not surprisingly, the dislike is mutual, and Drake does nothing to dispel Mason’s suspicion that the sexy boy with a southern drawl is somehow connected to the murder. If only Mason didn’t find himself inexplicably spellbound whenever they are together, they might actually find out what danger hides in the shadows.
The Midnight Gardener
R.G. Thomas - 2015
at night... surrounded by fireflies.Superstition is the town Thaddeus Cane and his father, Nathan, have settled in this time, and every evening Thaddeus becomes more intrigued with his new neighbor. When Thaddeus finally works up the nerve to visit his neighbor, the crush blooming underneath surfaces, and he realizes that Teofil, the midnight gardener, is lonely as well. When his father finds out where he's been spending his time, Thaddeus is forbidden from returning. But the attraction is too strong, and soon Thaddeus is back in Teofil's yard, leading to the revelation of long held secrets that upend Thaddeus' quiet life and sends him on the adventure of a lifetime.
Andy Squared
Jennifer Lavoie - 2012
They share everything—from their friends to a room—and they both enjoy star positions on their high school’s soccer teams. All’s right with the twins...or is it?When new student Ryder Coltrane moves from Texas to their small New York town, he spins Andrew’s world upside down. All of Andrew’s past relationship troubles begin to make sense and his true feelings start to click into place after Ryder comes out to him. His friendship with Ryder turns secretively romantic, but secrets, they soon find out, are hard to keep. Once rumors start to fly, so-called friends turn on them, and the boys’ relationship turns into a bomb about to explode. But Andrew never expected it would be his own twin, Andrea, holding a lighter to ignite it.
Wide Awake
David Levithan - 2006
They were shocked, barely comprehending. Me? I sat there and beamed. Everything seems to be going right in Duncan's life: The candidate he's been supporting for president has just won the election. Duncan's boyfriend, Jimmy, is with him to celebrate. Love and kindness appear to have won the day.But all too quickly, things start to go wrong. The election is called into question... and Duncan and Jimmy's relationship is called into question, too. Suddenly Duncan has to decide what he's willing to risk for something he believes in... and how far he's willing to go to hold on to the people we hold dear.
Touching Snow
M. Sindy Felin - 2007
She'd like this to change, but with her and her sisters dodging their stepfather's fists every day after school, she doesn't have time to do much self-reflecting. Finally her stepfather is taken away on child abuse charges, and Karina thinks things might turn into something resembling normal. The problem is, he's not gone for good. And as Karina becomes closer with a girl at the community center where her stepfather is not showing up for his parenting classes, she starts to realize a couple things. First, for all the problems her family had tried to escape by immigrating from Haiti, they brought most of them along to upstate New York. And second, if anything is going to change for this family, it is going to be up to Karina and her sisters to make it happen. M. Sindy Felin's debut novel is the story of a young girl's coming-of-age amid the violent waters that run just beneath the surface of suburbia -- a story that has the courage to ask: How far will you go to protect the ones you love?
Atom Heart John Beloved
Luke Hartwell - 2012
The story is told by eighteen-year-old John, who quietly whispers to his best friend one night in bed, "Do me." This novel is a breathtaking love story and an intense coming of age story that resembles no other book. John's narrative voice is one of the most unique in gay literature. Atom Heart John Beloved is literate, intimate, erotic, and delightful, delivering unexpected moments of grace.
Perfect Freedom
Gordon Merrick - 1982
Tropez -- dapper American expatriate Stuart Cosling, his ravishing French wife Helene, and their stunningly handsome son Robbie. To his parents, Robbie was still a boy, but in the spring of 1938, on a cruise of the Greek islands, Robbie discovered the pleasures of manhood. It wasn't until a certain season in St. Tropez that Robbie discovered the endless passion that comes only once with first love.
The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley
Shaun David Hutchinson - 2015
His parents did, and so did his sister, but he survived.Now he lives in the hospital. He serves food in the cafeteria, he hangs out with the nurses, and he sleeps in a forgotten supply closet. Drew blends in to near invisibility, hiding from his past, his guilt, and those who are trying to find him.Then one night Rusty is wheeled into the ER, burned on half his body by hateful classmates. His agony calls out to Drew like a beacon, pulling them both together through all their pain and grief. In Rusty, Drew sees hope, happiness, and a future for both of them. A future outside the hospital, and away from their pasts.But Drew knows that life is never that simple. Death roams the hospital, searching for Drew, and now Rusty. Drew lost his family, but he refuses to lose Rusty, too, so he’s determined to make things right. He’s determined to bargain, and to settle his debts once and for all.But Death is not easily placated, and Drew’s life will have to get worse before there is any chance for things to get better.A partly graphic novel.
Evensong's Heir
L.S. Baird - 2013
Every twelve years, a new Lark and Thrush are castrated for their heavenly voices, but few men have ever been capable of claiming the title of Dove: the holy avatar of Saint Alveron himself. In the six hundred years since the Temple's founding, Willim is only the third to buy the Evensong with his blood. A virtual prisoner of the Temple for the duration of his term, Willim pays little heed to anything but his duty to sing for Valnon. That all changes with the murder of the Songbirds' loyal bodyguard and Willim's rescue by Nicholas Grayson, a sell-sword who brings whispers of Temple scandal and ancient prophecy in his wake.Plagued by ghosts and nightmares, betrayed by a fellow Temple Bird and forced into exile, Willim struggles to unravel the tangled history of his title in the hopes of understanding what it truly means to be Valnon's Dove. With his friends scattered and Valnon poised on the brink of war, Willim's only hope lies in summoning the ancient power of his saint: to Sing Down from Heaven a music that can fell an army in its tracks, or wipe a city from the surface of the earth. But the song of Saint Alveron is as unpredictable as it is powerful. Whether Willim's Song will bring salvation for his city or the destruction of everything he holds dear, only Heaven knows.
Black Sheep
Kay Simone - 2019
After relapses, detoxes, and even jail time, Otto found the stability and sobriety he was looking for halfway across the country with a new identity.But when Otto gets word that his father is terminally ill and his mother and brother are struggling to keep the family inn afloat, he knows that it’s time to swallow his pride and go home.Even if he hasn’t talked to his family in almost two decades. *** When Cheshire-native Reese left his foster family to find his passion in New York City, he imagined he was saying goodbye to Cheshire forever. But Reese was never cut out for New York. The city chewed him up and spat him out, and Reese was forced to return home where his best friend still resented Reese for leaving.
“You left me just like Otto. Everyone leaves...”
Now it’s been two years since he’s been back, and Reese runs Cheshire’s only general store. He’s painstakingly mended his friendship with his best friend, and even after the recent death of his foster father, Reese almost feels like part of a family again. Reese feels like he’s finally got his life under control. Then his best friend’s brother walks into Reese’s bar. *** Nineteen years ago, Reese and Otto were as good as brothers. But now, they have more catching up to do than either of them realized. After a chance encounter in which neither man recognizes the other, the two must navigate the wreckage of a struggling family, a brother who can’t forgive, and the reality of life in an isolated town in the mountains.
Black Sheep is the first book in the three-book series, My Best Friend’s Brother. It has a happy-for-now ending, but is NOT self-contained. This slow burn starts out with a bang and delivers content meant for adult audiences. Black Sheep contains frank discussions about drug use and recovery.
Let's Get Back to the Party
Zak Salih - 2021
A high school art history teacher, newly single and desperately lonely, he envies his queer students their freedom to live openly the youth he lost to fear and shame. So when he runs into his childhood friend Oscar Burnham at a wedding in Washington, D.C., he can’t help but see it as a second chance. Now thirty-five, the men haven’t seen each other in a decade. But Oscar has no interest in their shared history. Instead, he’s outraged by what he sees as the death of gay culture: bars overrun with bachelorette parties; friends getting married, having babies. While Oscar and Sebastian struggle to find their place in a rapidly changing world, each is drawn into a cross-generational friendship that treads the line between envy and obsession: Sebastian with one of his students and Oscar with an older icon of the AIDS era. And as they collide again and again, both men must come reckon not just with one another, but with themselves. Rich with sharply drawn characters and contemporary detail, provocative, and emotionally profound, Let’s Get Back to the Party is sure to appeal to readers of Garth Greenwell, Alan Hollinghurst, Claire Messud, and Rebecca Makkai.
The Quarter Boys
David Lennon - 2010
When he meets homicide detective Michel Doucette, he feels his life is finally coming together but soon he finds himself being drawn into a world of drugs and prostitution, and directly into the path of the killer. When Michel and his partner, Alexandra "Sassy" Jones, are given the case, Michel sees it as a chance for a fresh start. Little does he suspect that Joel's life depends on his finding the killer or foresee the personal sacrifices he'll have to make to succeed. "The Quarter Boys" is the first in a series of novels featuring detectives Michel Doucette and Sassy Jones. The second book, "Echoes," won the 2010 Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Mystery.
Ruby
Rosa Guy - 1976
. . scared of what their loneliness may involve them in".--Publishers Weekly. When Ruby moves from the West Indies to the mean streets of Harlem, she finds a love that leads her through the painful transition from girl to woman.