There Goes Sunday School


Alexander C. Eberhart - 2018
    His family’s life revolves around the church, a church run by the vocally intolerant Pastor Myers, so Mike has resolved to spend his life in the closet. His only escape—besides the occasional, anonymous gay make-out session—is his art. He pours his complicated emotions into risqué drawings he keeps in a secret sketchbook. A sketchbook he carries everywhere. When his sketchbook goes missing in the middle of Sunday school, Mike is sure his life is over. He’s going to be outed, ostracized by their community, condemned by the pastor, maybe even homeless. What’s worse, the pastor’s son, Chris, suddenly seems hell-bent on adopting Mike and his friends and he has no idea why.When an awkward confrontation with Chris leads to an unexpected kiss instead of a much-expected punch, Mike’s world is turned upside down. As their friendship grows and faith is questioned, Mike may be forced to choose between the comfortable life he's always lived and a chance at the love he never thought he deserved.

Maurice


E.M. Forster - 1971
    In order to be true to himself, he goes against the grain of society’s often unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.Forster understood that his homage to same-sex love, if published when he completed it in 1914, would probably end his career. Thus, Maurice languished in a drawer for fifty-seven years, the author requesting it be published only after his death (along with his stories about homosexuality later collected in The Life to Come).Since its release in 1971, Maurice has been widely read and praised. It has been, and continues to be, adapted for major stage productions, including the 1987 Oscar-nominated film adaptation starring Hugh Grant and James Wilby.

This Is Not a Love Story


Suki Fleet - 2014
    Mute and terrified, his silence makes him vulnerable, and one night he is beaten by a gang of other kids, only to be rescued by a boy who pledges to take care of him.Julian is barely two years older than Romeo. A runaway from an abusive home, he has had to make some difficult choices and sells himself on the street to survive. Taking care of Romeo changes him, gives him a purpose in life, gives him hope, and he tries to be strong and keep his troubles with drugs behind him. But living as they do is slowly destroying him, and he begins to doubt he can be strong enough.This is the story of their struggle to find a way off the streets and stay together at all costs. But when events threaten to tear them apart, it is Romeo who must find the strength within himself to help Julian (and not let their love story turn into a Shakespearean tragedy).

The Story of the Night


Colm Tóibín - 1996
    Richard Garay lives with his mother, hiding his sexuality from her and from society. Stifled by his job, Richard is willing to take chances, both sexually and professionally. But Argentina is changing, and as his country edges toward peace, Richard tentatively begins a love affair. The result is a powerful, brave, and poignant novel of sex, death, and the diffculties of connecting one's inner life with the outside world.

Lie With Me


Philippe Besson - 2017
    We drive at high speed along back roads, through woods, vineyards, and oat fields. The bike smells like gasoline and makes a lot of noise, and sometimes I’m frightened when the wheels slip on the gravel on the dirt road, but the only thing that matters is that I’m holding on to him, that I’m holding on to him outside.Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.Dazzlingly rendered in English by Ringwald in her first-ever translation, Besson’s powerfully moving coming-of-age story captures the eroticism and tenderness of first love—and the heartbreaking passage of time.

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.

The Doctor's Discretion


E.E. Ottoman - 2017
    The desire between them is undeniable but their budding relationship is disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious patient at New York Hospital.Mr. Moss has been accused of being born a woman but living his life as a man, an act that will see him committed to an asylum for the rest of his life. William and Augustus are determined to mount a rescue even if it means kidnapping him instead.Their desperate plan sets William and Augustus against the hospital authorities, and the law. Soon they find themselves embroiled in New York's seedy underworld, mixed up with prostitutes, spies, and more than a lifetime's worth of secrets. When nothing is as it seems can they find something real in each other?

This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story


Kacen Callender - 2018
    the Homo Sapiens Agenda and Boy Meets Boy about Nathan Bird, who has sworn off happy endings but is sorely tested when his former best friend, Ollie, moves back to town.Nathan Bird doesn’t believe in happy endings.Although he’s the ultimate film buff and an aspiring screenwriter, Nate’s seen the demise of too many relationships to believe that happy endings exist in real life.Playing it safe to avoid a broken heart has been his MO ever since his father died and left his mom to unravel—but this strategy is not without fault. His best-friend-turned-girlfriend-turned-best-friend-again, Florence, is set on making sure Nate finds someone else. And in a twist that is rom-com-worthy, someone does come along: Oliver James Hernández, his childhood best friend.After a painful mix-up when they were little, Nate finally has the chance to tell Ollie the truth about his feelings. But can Nate find the courage to pursue his own happily ever after?

Wicked Angels


Éric Jourdan - 1955
    It is the story of Pierre and Gerard, two teenagers who share a love that no one else around them can condone. The two young men discover their destiny in each other's arms, their passion coupled with violence-and ultimately pay the price. The novel is a profoundly lyrical ode to adolescent love and sexuality, as well as a bold and elegant rejection of society's values while on the road to self-destruction.Told in two parts, the poetic love story of Wicked Angels is first told by Pierre, then by Gerard. This erotic classic follows their passionate relationship as it builds in intensity, with affection between them punctuated with rough sex and tender romance. Pierre is handsome, introverted, jealous, and sadistic. Gerard is charming, roguish, intelligent, and vain. Together they form an imperfect union of all-encompassing love that is destined to fail.Translator Thomas Armbrecht, PhD, helpfully includes an informative introduction that puts the novel into the proper context of the times and reviews the book's problems with censorship.Excerpts from Wicked Angels:Gerard took a slingshot out of his pocket, calmly picked up a pebble from the walk, aimed, and destroyed the first glass bell. The air filled with the sound of shattering crystal. I didn't protest; I was overcome. One after the other, each glass cover was broken. More than one, struck exactly in the middle, exploded like alandmine. I asked Gerard to leave the last one for me. He handed me his slingshot. I watched my stone hit the glass and reduce it to shards. Gerard grabbed me around the waist, trembling, his mouth humid with saliva, his fingers filled with earth.Before us, the neat furrows were gone; it looked like a bomb had been dropped. Gerard wanted some sort of an apotheosis. He unscrewed a watering pipe, splashed about, and then opened the valves of the cistern. Rainwater spewed out in torrents, drowning the seedlings, carrying the glass debris across the garden. A miniature tulip planted between the red currant bushes and the tool shed started to drown. Gerard's shirt, covered with spray and wet to the shoulder, stuck to his flesh. Its transparency revealed his skin. Getting up, he burst out laughing: "And that's not all, citizen!" he said to me, "On to the Bastille!" The Bastille was what we called the Decazes' pigeon house. We had to cross two vegetable gardens to get to their yard and to the slate-covered tower where they raised hunting birds.And:My heart beating, I dashed out into the hall. My cousin's voice surged forward from the depths of me, climbing into my chest and putting all of his words of love into my mouth. Their violence intoxicated me. I knocked on his door. Everything was still, and yet I could tell he was close, on the other side of the door, his head pressed against the wood. I could have drawn the outline of his body, so strongly did I sense it pressed against the door that I vainly wanted him to open. He revealed himself with every exhalation. His breath was so close that his lips had to be on the door. I kissed the wall passionately, and threw myself against it. We were like two lovers separated by a prison wall, more visible to each other now than in the suffocation of their kisses, showing more love here than through their gestures of love.Wicked Angels lives on as a passionate and ultimately tragic story of extreme and ill-fated love that transcends conceptions of gender, youth, and class in society.

Otherbound


Corinne Duyvis - 2014
    Not when she's protecting the cursed princess she unwillingly serves. Not when they're fleeing across dunes and islands and seas to stay alive. Not when she's punished, ordered around, or neglected.She can't be alone, because a boy from another world experiences all that alongside her, looking through her eyes.Nolan longs for a life uninterrupted. Every time he blinks, he's yanked from his Arizona town into Amara's mind, a world away, which makes even simple things like hobbies and homework impossible. He's spent years as a powerless observer of Amara's life. Amara has no idea . . . until he learns to control her, and they communicate for the first time. Amara is terrified. Then, she's furious.All Amara and Nolan want is to be free of each other. But Nolan's breakthrough has dangerous consequences. Now, they'll have to work together to survive--and discover the truth about their connection.

The Darkness Outside Us


Eliot Schrefer - 2021
    There’s more that doesn’t add up: Evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship’s operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed—not when he’s rescuing his own sister.In order to survive the ship’s secrets, Ambrose and Kodiak will need to work together and learn to trust one another… especially once they discover what they are truly up against. Love might be the only way to survive.

Seven Tears at High Tide


C.B. Lee - 2015
    Remembering a legend his mother told him, he lets seven tears fall into the sea. “I just want one summer—one summer to be happy and in love.”Instead, he finds himself saving a mysterious boy from the Pacific—a boy who later shows up on his doorstep professing his love. What he doesn’t know is that Morgan is a selkie, drawn to answer Kevin’s wish.As they grow close, Morgan is caught between the dangers of the human world and his legacy in the selkie community to which he must return at summer’s end.

My Dearest Holmes


Rohase Piercy - 1988
    Some were outraged; others were overjoyed.This Thirtieth Anniversary Edition contains extra material - an essay on the Gothic and Decadent origins of Conan Doyle's iconic character, and a Foreword by Charlie Raven exploring the changes in attitude towards LGBTQ relationships since the book's first publication.

Brokeback Mountain


Annie Proulx - 1997
     Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands, come together when they're working as sheepherder and camp tender one summer on a range above the tree line. At first, sharing an isolated tent, the attraction is casual, inevitable, but something deeper catches them that summer. Both men work hard, marry, and have kids because that's what cowboys do. But over the course of many years and frequent separations this relationship becomes the most important thing in their lives, and they do anything they can to preserve it. The New Yorker won the National Magazine Award for Fiction for its publication of "Brokeback Mountain," and the story was included in Prize Stories 1998: The O. Henry Awards. In gorgeous and haunting prose, Proulx limns the difficult, dangerous affair between two cowboys that survives everything but the world's violent intolerance.

The Back Passage


James Lear - 2006
    But wait — Edward “Mitch” Mitchell is no Hercule Poirot, and The Back Passage is no Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Mitch is a handsome, insatiable 22-year-old hunk who never lets a clue stand in the way of a steamy encounter, whether it’s with the local constabulary, the house secretary, or his school chum and fellow athlete Boy Morgan, who becomes his Watson when they’re not busy boffing each other. When Reg Walworth is found dead in a cabinet, Sir James Eagle has his servant Weeks immediately arrested as the killer. But Mitch’s observant eye pegs more plausible possibilities: polysexual chauffeur Hibbert, queenly pervert Leonard Eagle, missing scion Rex, sadistic copper Kennington, even Sir James Eagle himself. Blackmail, police corruption, a dizzying network of spyholes and secret passages, watersports, and a nonstop queer orgy backstairs and everyplace else mark this hilariously hard-core mystery by a major new talent.