In these memoirs, coming out is less important than coming of age and coming to the realization that young gay people experience the world in ways quite unlike straight boys. Whether it is a fascination with soap opera, an intense sensitivity to their own difference, or an obsession with a certain part of the male anatomy, gay kids — or kids who would eventually identify as gay — have an indefinable but unmistakable gay sensibility. Sometimes the result is funny, sometimes it is harrowing, and often it is deeply moving. Essays by lauded young writers like Alex Chee (Edinburgh), Aaron Hamburger (Faith for Beginners), Karl Soehnlein (The World of Normal Boys), Trebor Healy (Through It Came Bright Colors), Tom Dolby (The Trouble Boy), David Bahr, and Austin Bunn, are collected along with those by brilliant, newcomers such as Michael McAllister, Jason Tougaw, Viet Dinh, and the wildly popular blogger, Joe.My.God.

    On social networks and dating sites, his image and identity—a forty-year-old straight white male—had been used to hook countless women into believing in lies of love and romance. Was it all an ironic cosmic joke? Almost a decade prior, William himself had been living a lie that had lasted for more than twenty years. His secret? He was a gay man, a fact he hid from his wife and two daughters for almost as long as he had hidden it from himself.In this emotional and unflinchingly honest memoir of coming out of the closet late in life, owning up to the past, and facing the future, William Dameron confronts steroid addiction, the shame and homophobia of his childhood, the sledgehammer of secrets that slowly tore his marriage apart, and his love for a gay father of three that would once again challenge the boundaries of trust. At the true heart of The Lie is a universal story about turning self-doubt into self-acceptance and about pain, anger, and the long journey of both seeking and giving forgiveness.

    As a joke, Delta Ballou puts the names of her three best friends on the list of performers. Rising to the challenge, they agree to sing and even convince Delta to join them. Rae Dawn DuChamp plays the piano and weaves harmonies in a smoky contralto. Lacy Cantrell masters the basic guitar chords, and her twin sister, Lauren, contributes a pleasing voice. They call themselves the Delta Belles and win the talent show hands-down.What started as a lark turns into an exciting adventure. The Delta Belles perform at protests and voter registration rallies across the country. As graduation draws near, all the Delta Belles seem poised for bright futures.Twenty-five years later, Delta, recently widowed and angry at God, is asked to get the Belles together to perform at their college reunion. Lacy and Lauren haven’t spoken to each other in years, and Rae Dawn has been beset by overwhelming losses. Their reunion turns out to be much more than an opportunity to relive the past. As the old friends reconnect, they come to a new understanding of the meaning and value of their lives.

    If you're you are open to difference, are interested in alternative ways to live and love, and enjoy a fast-paced thriller, then this book is for you—so read and enjoy.Eighteen year-old Sebastian is an enigma. Everyone likes him, but no one knows anything about him. He wears clothes only under protest, but no one seems to mind. To say his home life is unusual is like saying the Amazon is a stream. Bizarre doesn’t even begin to describe his upbringing. He doesn’t know who his father was, he’s used as a therapist for broken youths, and yet he’s managed to remain a ‘normal’ and thoroughly ‘nice guy’…in the opinion of all those who are not concerned by his penchant for nudity.In this fast paced tale of criminal intrigue, porno rings, abductions and mayhem in tropical Australia, Sebastian and his boyfriend, Reginald, fight for their lives against the big-moneyed bad boys.

    Jack’s recent death leaves Perry reeling and alone. After eighteen years together, Perry has no idea how he can move forward.Lucas Jenkins, a nineteen-year-old residing in Beaufort, South Carolina, has lost both his mother and the man he dreamed of sharing his life with. Lucas discovers a letter from his mother that directs him to a safe deposit box at the local bank. The box contains two letters that reveal life-altering revelations.Join Perry as he takes his dead husband’s advice and begins a journey of discovery and love. Perry’s journey begins with the meeting of a mysterious boy. Will this boy provide the answers to the future, or will he only be the first stop that leads Perry to a destiny with Lucas?Book one of Letters is a story about how we pick up the pieces of our lives and make the choice to live again. Are Perry and Lucas destined for love? Does the ethereal boy from Virginia still figure into the journey of the two men with letters?

    When Avara and her Squad are given their next mission, to track down and capture the Vosaia STF Agent K’llan Z’arr and recover the deadly Arcatech Enhancement research she has stolen, what Avara thought would be a very straightforward mission quickly becomes anything but.Assigned to work with a second Shield Operative to maintain political relations between the Human Ministry and Vosaia Consulate, it becomes apparent that hard questions need to be asked as to the identity of the true culprit behind the missing data, inquiries made all the more critical as it is revealed that the intended recipient of the pilfered Arcatech is the hostile Karukai Imperium. With the Margrom War ended only two and a half years ago, the apparent defection of Quorum agents and the theft of the newly developed Arca technology threatens to crack the fragile status quo of the ongoing cold war between the Quorum Aligned Systems and the Karukai Imperium. If ignited, such a large-scale conflict would result in the enslavement or death of trillions of people. The demands of this mission will push Captain Avara Serros and Nova Squad to the very limits of what they can physically and emotionally endure, and beyond.Nova, The Dark Reach Wars, features complex and highly diverse characters in a gritty narrative that blends heart-racing firefights, suspense, romance, and tension-laden struggles for survival within the context of looming war. Set in the far future when Earth no longer exits and Humans are only one of a dozen sentient species, Nova is epic cinema made page-turning literature set in a fully realized futuristic world.

    From the back cover copy:Max Desir loved his Italian-American family--even after his iron-willed father exiled him from its intimate innner circle.Max Desir loved his lover, Nick, with whom he openly took up life first amid the enchantment of Rome, then amid the realities of New York.Two loves so deeply felt--in a man so painfully divided...

    The only problem is, her mouth-watering novels always leave you hungry for more. So, because you asked for it, more is exactly what's on the menu today!As a special treat, our gal-loving gourmet has whipped up a baker's dozen of scrumptious short stories - each one filled with your favorite characters and settings from her critically acclaimed bestsellers, In Every Port, Touchwood, Paperback Romance, Car Pool, Painted Moon, Wild Things, Embrace in Motion, Watermark, Making Up for Lost Time, and Unforgettable. Stories so rich with romance, we bet you can't read just one!

    The best of the first 5 years of BUTT: Adventures in 21st century gay subculture Since its first legendary issue in 2001, international quarterly magazine BUTT has been bringing together groups of young alternative gay guys all around the world, connecting fashion, sex, and art with a good sense of irony.

    When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother Sam and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans. But when she turns fifteen, she runs away to Colorado hoping to find the brother she lost and discovers a family she never knew she had.Though Rachel believes she’s shut out her painful childhood memories, years later she is confronted with her dark past when she becomes a nurse at Manhattan’s Old Hebrews Home and her patient is none other than the elderly, cancer-stricken Dr. Solomon. Rachel becomes obsessed with making Dr. Solomon acknowledge, and pay for, her wrongdoing. But each passing hour Rachel spends with the old doctor reveal to Rachel the complexities of her own nature. She realizes that a person’s fate—to be one who inflicts harm or one who heals—is not always set in stone.Lush in historical detail, rich in atmosphere and based on true events, Orphan #8 is a powerful, affecting novel of the unexpected choices we are compelled to make that can shape our destinies.

    Including interviews from Freddie Mercury's closest friends in the last years of his life, along with personal photographs, Somebody to Love is an authoritative biography of the great man.Here are previously unknown and startling facts about the singer and his life, moving detail on his lifelong search for love and personal fulfilment, and of course his tragic contraction of a then killer disease in the mid-1980s. Woven throughout Freddie's life is the shocking story of how the HIV virus came to hold the world in its grip, was cruelly labelled 'The Gay Plague' and the unwitting few who indirectly infected thousands of men, women and children - Freddie Mercury himself being one of the most famous. The death of this vibrant and spectacularly talented rock star, shook the world of medicine as well as the world of music. Somebody to Love finally puts the record straight and pays detailed tribute to the man himself.

    From his time at Soaps in Depth and Entertainment Tonight to his influential stints at TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly to his current role as co-founder of the wildly popular website TVLine.com, Michael has established himself as the go-to expert when it comes to our most popular form of entertainment.What many of his fans don’t know, however, is that while his professional life was in full swing, Michael had to endure the greatest of personal tragedies: his longtime boyfriend, Kit Cowan, was diagnosed with a rare and very aggressive form of neuroendrocrine cancer. Over the course of eleven months, Kit and Michael did their best to combat the deadly disease, but Kit succumbed to his illness in February 2015.In this heartbreaking and darkly hilarious memoir, Michael tells the story of his harrowing and challenging last year with Kit while revisiting the thirteen years that preceded it, and how the undeniably powerful bond between him and Kit carried them through all manner of difficulty—always with laughter front and center in their relationship. Instead of a tale of sadness and loss, Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies is an unforgettable, inspiring, and beautiful testament to the resilience and strength of true love.

    She is the kind of woman who says “anyhoo” and calls everyone “Dahlin’” or a special pet name. With hair, makeup, and nails always done to perfection, she triumphs rather than crumbles when infidelity, alcoholism, cancer, or any form of adversity attempts to shatter her family. Endearing and enduring, Gayle is a big-hearted, strong-willed true Southern belle—and she taught her son everything he knows about being a man.In She Ain’t Heavy, She’s My Mother, Bryan Batt, the actor who plays Sal Romano on the Emmy, Golden Globe, and Peabody Award–winning Mad Men, chronicles his life—and his mother’s supportive presence in it.From growing up gay below the Mason-Dixon Line to landing principal roles on Broadway (his first was on roller skates playing a singing and dancing boxcar in Starlight Express!) and later on the picture-perfect sets of TV’s Mad Men, to opening the ever-popular Hazelnut boutique in his hometown of New Orleans with his partner, Bryan weaves a touching and hilarious story of the South, showbiz, and an unshakable bond between mother and son.

    Growing up in a politically conservative corner of California, the not-so-subtle messages he heard as a young man from his family and from TV and film routinely equated being gay with disease and death. Letting people in on the darkest secret he kept buried inside was not an option: better death with a secret than life as a gay man. As a kid , Ryan never envisioned just how far his football career would take him. He was recruited by the University of California, Berkeley, where he spent five seasons, playing alongside his friend Aaron Rodgers. Then it was on to the NFL for stints with the almost-undefeated New England Patriots and the often-defeated Kansas City Chiefs.Bubbling under the surface of Ryan’s entire NFL career was a collision course between his secret sexuality and his hidden drug use. When the league caught him smoking pot, he turned to NFL-sanctioned prescription painkillers that quickly sent his life into a tailspin. As injuries mounted and his daily intake of opioids reached a near-lethal level, he wrote his suicide note to his parents and plotted his death.Yet someone had been watching. A member of the Chiefs organization stepped in, recognizing the signs of drug addiction. Ryan reluctantly sought psychological help, and it was there that he revealed his lifelong secret for the very first time. Nearing the twilight of his career, Ryan faced the ultimate decision: end it all, or find out if his family and football friends could ever accept a gay man in their lives.

    Once Robert was out, both he and his mother Jane felt a newfound freedom to be more honest with each other. From the discrimination Jane experienced as a pregnant teenager in a small town, to Robert's manscaping, almost no topic was off-limits in their conversations. Soon, Robert was creating a gay glossary so that Jane could understand the lexicon and Jane was giving Robert the same dating advice that she used to give Robert's older sister (men are jerks).CONVERSATIONS AND COSMOPOLITANS is a frank, funny, and heartfelt look at coming out from both a mother's and son's perspective, and an inspiring memoir about building family relationships based on honesty, openness, and acceptance.