Book picks similar to
Arnold Falls by Charlie Suisman
giveaways
fiction
humor
lgbt
We Are Still Tornadoes
Michael Kun - 2016
Now they’ve graduated high school, and Cath is off to college while Scott stays at home trying to get his band off the ground. Neither of them realized that their first year after high school would be so hard.Fortunately, Scott and Cath still have each other, and it’s through their letters that they survive heartache, annoying roommates, family dramas, and the pressure of figuring out what to do with the rest of their lives. And through it all, they realize that the only person they’ve ever wanted to turn to is each other. But does that mean they should think about being more than friends? One thing is clear: Change is an inescapable part of growing up, and we share unbreakable bonds with the friends who help us navigate it.
Vinegar Girl
Anne Tyler - 2016
Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she’s always in trouble at work – her pre-school charges adore her, but their parents don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner. Dr. Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There’s only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr, all would be lost.When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he’s really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around?
Just My Luck
Alice Winters - 2020
My chances for escape look pretty bleak when I’m handcuffed to Tony’s bodyguard, an intimidating man named Shepherd who apparently loves tight shirts and seems to be amused by making my life miserable. Soon, though, I learn that Shepherd has a heart and a brain. And sometimes, those two things can be a bigger weapon than anything in a time like this. I just have to learn how to wield them. After Shepherd gets me away from Tony’s men, I discover that he’s a survivor, a fighter, and the only person who seems willing to help me when it feels like the whole world is against me. At first, I’m not sure if I can trust the man, but the more we get to know each other, the more I realize that he’s funny and kind of sweet. He’s determined to protect me, but he doesn’t know all of my secrets. He doesn’t know that Tony isn’t the only one looking for me. But together, as we face betrayal and taking down the worst monster of all, we’re determined that we will be the lucky ones after all. Just My Luck is a 101k book that includes a dog that wants to eat Killian’s face off (or maybe just play with his shoe), handcuffs used in a disappointing way, way too much running, a hero that can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a gun (which might have something to do with the fact that he picks up a book instead of practicing every chance he gets), a game of strip checkers that doesn’t go as planned, and two broken souls who find peace in each other.
The Antidote For Everything
Kimmery Martin - 2020
Georgia Brown’s profession as a urologist requires her to interact with plenty of naked men, but her romantic prospects have fizzled. The most important person in her life is her friend Jonah Tsukada, a funny, empathetic family medicine doctor who works at the same hospital in Charleston, South Carolina and who has become as close as family to her.Just after Georgia leaves the country for a medical conference, Jonah shares startling news. The hospital is instructing doctors to stop providing medical care for transgender patients. Jonah, a gay man, is the first to be fired when he refuses to abandon his patients. Stunned by the predicament of her closest friend, Georgia’s natural instinct is to fight alongside him. But when her attempts to address the situation result in incalculable harm, both Georgia and Jonah find themselves facing the loss of much more than their careers.
What Happened to the Bennetts
Lisa Scottoline
He is driving his family home after his daughter’s lacrosse game when a pickup truck begins tailgating them, on a dark stretch of road. Suddenly two men jump from the pickup and pull guns on Jason, demanding the car. A horrific flash of violence changes his life forever. Later that awful night, Jason and his family receive a visit from the FBI. The agents tell them that the carjackers were members of a dangerous drug-trafficking organization - and now Jason and his family are in their crosshairs. The agents advise the Bennetts to enter the witness protection program right away, and they have no choice but to agree. But WITSEC was designed to protect criminal informants, not law-abiding families. Taken from all they know, trapped in an unfamiliar life, the Bennetts begin to fall apart at the seams. Then Jason learns a shocking truth and realizes that he has to take matters into his own hands.
Draw the Line
Laurent Linn - 2016
He may be a talented artist, a sci-fi geek, and gay, but at his Texas high school, those traits would only bring him the worst kind of attention. In fact, the only place he feels free to express himself is at his drawing table, crafting a secret world through his own Renaissance art-inspired superhero, Graphite. But in real life, when a shocking hate crime flips his world upside down, Adrian must decide what kind of person he wants to be. Maybe it’s time to not be so invisible after all—no matter how dangerous the risk.
The Lost Language of Cranes
David Leavitt - 1986
Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of twenty-five-year-old Philip, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man. Philip's parents are facing their own crisis: pressure from developers and the loss of their longtime home. But the real threat to this family is Philip's father's own struggle with his latent homosexuality, realized only in his Sunday afternoon visits to gay porn theaters. Philip's admission to his parents and his father's hidden life provoke changes that forever alter the landscape of their worlds.
If I Could Turn Back Time
Beth Harbison - 2015
She made her fortune and now she hob nobs with the very rich and occasionally the semi-famous, and she enjoys luxuries she only dreamed of as a middle-class kid growing up in Potomac, Maryland. But despite it all, she can't ignore the fact that she isn't necessarily happy. In fact, lately Ramie has begun to feel more than a little empty.On a boat with friends off the Florida coast, she tries to fight her feelings of discontent with steel will and hard liquor. No one even notices as she gets up and goes to the diving board and dives off...Suddenly Ramie is waking up, straining to understand a voice calling in the distance...It's her mother: "Wake up! You're going to be late for school again. I'm not writing a note this time..."Ramie finds herself back on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, with a second chance to see the people she's lost and change the choices she regrets. How did she get back here? Has she gone off the deep end? Is she really back in time? Above all, she'll have to answer the question that no one else can: What it is that she really wants from the past, and for her future?
Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun
Jonny Garza Villa - 2021
Get into UCLA. And have the chance to move away from Corpus Christi, Texas, and the suffocating expectations of others that have forced Jules into an inauthentic life.Then in one reckless moment, with one impulsive tweet, his plans for a low-key nine months are thrown—literally—out the closet. The downside: the whole world knows, and Jules has to prepare for rejection. The upside: Jules now has the opportunity to be his real self.Then Mat, a cute, empathetic Twitter crush from Los Angeles, slides into Jules’s DMs. Jules can tell him anything. Mat makes the world seem conquerable. But when Jules’s fears about coming out come true, the person he needs most is fifteen hundred miles away. Jules has to face them alone.Jules accidentally propelled himself into the life he’s always dreamed of. And now that he’s in control of it, what he does next is up to him.
First, Become Ashes
K.M. Szpara - 2021
M. Szpara follows Docile, one of the most anticipated science fiction novels of 2020, with First, Become Ashes, a fantastic standalone adventure that blends pain and pleasure and will make readers question what is real, and what is magical.Lark spent the first twenty-four years, nine months, and three days of his life training for a righteous quest: to rid the world of monsters. Alongside his partner Kane, he wore the cage and endured the scourge in order to develop his innate magic. He never thought that when Kane left, he'd next see him in the company of FBI agents and a SWAT team. He never dreamed that the leader of the Fellowship of the Anointed would be brought up on charges of abuse and assault.He never expected the government would tell him that the monsters aren't real--that there is no magic, and all the pain was for nothing.Lark isn't ready to give up. He is determined to fulfill his quest, to defeat the monsters he was promised. Along the way he will grapple with the past, confront love, and discover his long-buried truth.
Don't Call Me Dirty
Gorou Kanbe - 2020
Having struggled with his sexuality for years, Shouji throws himself into his work to distract himself from the rejection— but when a young homeless man called Hama shows up at the shop, Shouji finds himself curious to learn more about him and, hopefully, befriend him. Attempting to make their way in a society that labels each of them as 'outcasts' and 'dirty,' the two men grow closer. Together, they begin to find they have more in common than either of them could have anticipated.
He Gets That From Me
Jacqueline Friedland - 2021
She dreams of going to college and becoming a teacher, options she squandered when she fled her family home as a teenager. When Maggie stumbles onto an ad offering thousands of dollars to women who are willing to gestate other people’s babies, she at first finds the concept laughable. Before long, however, she’s been seduced by all the ways the extra money could improve her life. Once she decides to go for it, it’s only a matter of months before she’s chosen as a gestational carrier by Chip and Donovan Rigsdale, a married couple from New York.After delivering twin babies and proudly handing them off to the Rigsdales, Maggie finally gets her life on a positive trajectory: she earns her degree, lands a great job, and builds a family of her own. She can’t fathom why, ten years after the fact, the fertility clinic is calling to ask for a follow-up DNA test.
Ready For Love
Van Cole - 2019
Tormented by memories of the past I wonder if I’ll ever be able to become the man I used to be. There seems to be little hope for improvement until I receive a surprising call from my old best friend, Clint. We lost touch a while ago as life took its hold on us, but as we reconnect, I start to remember why he was such a good friend. He’s the only one who can get me to talk about my emotions, and as I open up to him, I start to feel something else. Something unfamiliar…something a little scary, but very exciting. Maybe, just maybe, we can save each other? Ready For Love is a standalone gay army romance with a HEA and NO cheating! Gay First Time Army Romance
Call Me By Your Name
André Aciman - 2007
Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman's frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by Your Name is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.
The Ugly Post - A love story
Sailor Penniman - 2017
They don’t have it all, but they have all they want—each other and the only relationship that’s ever meant anything to them. The week they met, they didn’t flirt with seduction to see what would happen. They fell in love and proved it the only way they knew how. They’ve never been apart since that first tumble into life as lovers, playful partners, best friends, and soul mates. Charlie has no reason to believe arriving home ahead of Bryce on a random Monday night will change everything between them. But when Charlie logs onto a computer he shares with Bryce, he stumbles into the devastating truth and learns what Bryce really thinks of him. Or does he? Charlie is sure he’s discovered a secret Bryce has kept for seven years, but Bryce swears Charlie is wrong. Blindsided by lies, mistrust, and shattered faith, the two are swallowed into a vortex spinning so fast, it tears them apart. Can they reveal the fiction in the truth and find their way back to each other, or will the black-and-white portrait one man’s words paint destroy them forever?