Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome back Shelly Jay Shore to reveal the cover of their upcoming Romance, Love Me Like a Rock Song, releasing August 25, 2026 from Dell! Here’s the story:
Delilah is a lyricist looking for a muse. Emmett is a golem ready to be unmade.
From the bestselling author of Rules for Ghostingcomes a soul-stirring, romantic novel about a jilted singer-songwriter, her unexpected hitchhiker, and the road trip of a lifetime.
When Delilah Cohen’s much more famous fiancée leaves her at the altar right before Delilah is supposed to start recording her first solo album, she finds herself with a notebook full of love songs that no longer make sense. Picking up a hitchhiker two hours into the road trip that was supposed to be her honeymoon seems as good a way as any to get her groove back. The last thing she expects is to start falling for her mysterious new passenger, but what’s more inspiring than a rebound with a built-in expiration date?
But there’s more to Emmett than meets the eye. Emmett is a golem, a human-ish being of Jewish mythology who was created from clay to serve a now-deceased master. No longer needed, their final task is to make their way back to the California cave where they were made in order to undo the magic that brought them to life in the first place. But the longer Emmett spends with Delilah—who has plenty of secrets and insecurities of her own—as they cross the country to visit historical queer locales from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, the more their ending feels like something to fight, rather than something set in stone.
As the California coast brings Delilah’s writing deadline—and Emmett’s fate—closer with every passing mile, Delilah has to decide just what song it is she wants to write…and whether writing the album of a lifetime is worth losing a love she never expected to find.
Part road trip romcom, part epistolary exploration of America’s vibrant queer culture, and all a love letter to the phrase “it’s about the journey, not the destination,” Love Me Like a Rock Song is a glorious love story about discovering who we are and what we want, and what it means to be human.
And here’s the killer cover designed and illustrated by Amy Perez!
Shelly Jay Shore is a writer, digital strategist, and nonprofit fundraiser. She writes for anxious queer millennials, sufferers of Eldest Daughter Syndrome, recovering summer camp counselors, and anyone struggling with the enormity of being a person trying to make the world kinder, softer, and more tender. Her debut novel, Rules for Ghosting, was a national bestseller and was named one of the New York Times Book Review’s Best Romances of the Year.
I’m just a nerd, standing in front of a bench press, asking it not to humiliate me in front of my gym crush
I’ve never walked into a gym on purpose in my life, and I’m not sure which part is more shocking, the massive beefcake who immediately challenges me to arm wrestle or the fact that I kind of want to come back.
I spent years of my life refusing to lift anything heavier than a textbook, and it shows. I never expected that coming to the gym and bulking up would give me more gender euphoria than all the T shots in the world.
The crush I’m developing on my Golden Retriever of a personal trainer, Butch, though? Yeah, I should have seen that one coming.
Butch is a guy’s guy. Jockstraps, armpit licking, Sweat enthusiast… what could he possibly find exciting about a scrawny, book-ish nerd like me?
I’m just going to try not to drool on him too hard while he helps me get pumped. And I’m for sure not going to do anything stupid like falling in love with him…
Today on the site, I’m delighted to reveal the cover for Time-Tripping Over You by Brennon Lane, a queer, trans YA Romance with Sci-Fi elements and aroace rep releasing March 10, 2026 from Page Street YA! Here’s the story:
In this slow-burn queer trans romance, two college students team up to stop the time traveling episodes forcing them to relive their pasts
College freshman Silas Turner is a scientific anomaly. Thrown back in time uncontrollably, he’s forced into his pre-transition body for hours to days at a time, reliving random events in his past. Why? Every cell in his astrophysics major brain is straining to figure it out. But the “time trips” just keep on coming, disrupting Silas’s life, and he’s certain he’s a one-of-a-kind phenomenon—until brash, guitar-playing Jude Forrester barges into his life, exhibiting the same symptoms.
He claims a future version of Silas visited him, and that, according to future-Silas, they’re meant to help each other stop the time trips. If working together can really lead to finding a cure, Silas can handle Jude’s tortured-artist attitude; Jude can humor Silas’s nerdy obsession with the stars.
As they get closer to a solution, they grow closer to each other. But Jude is still grieving an old connection that broke his heart, and he can’t help but wonder if changing the past might save himself and Silas a lot of heartache. Amidst cataclysmic consequences, Silas and Jude must face the cosmic circumstances that brought them together if they hope to protect their timeline—and the future they seem destined to share.
Brennon Lane is a Black, queer, trans author who can’t seem to stop creating characters whose stories beg to be told. Writing exclusively in the LGBTQ+ genre, he hopes to offer the younger queer community the diverse representation in media that he always sought. Time-Tripping Over You is his debut novel.
Today on the site, I’m delighted to have a guest author writing the Fave Five: Chatham Greenfield, author of Try Your Worst, which comes out tomorrow! Before we get to Chatham’s recs of Fave Five: Queer Enemies-to-Lovers YA Books, here’s a note from the author:
I would say that there’s nothing I love more than enemies-to-lovers romances, but I would be lying. I love one thing more: queer enemies-to-lovers romances.
When I was writing Try Your Worst, I was fortunate to have so many amazing queer enemies-to-lovers YA novels to turn to. There’s just something special about seeing two people realize that the line between hatred and love is blurring, only for it to dissipate completely.
From sprawling soccer fields, to high school journalism programs, to sweaty summer camps, queer YA certainly brings the angst-turned-swooning. Here are just five of my recent favorites.
This sapphic romance marries enemies-to-lovers with one of my other favorite tropes: forced proximity. Two rivals are forced to share a cabin at summer camp and the results are, like everything Baldwin writes, laugh out loud hilarious.
I’m such a fan of the way Jonny Garza Villa balances pain with lightness, and this book is no exception. This rivalry-turned-romance is set on the backdrop of Mariachi competitions and it’s so satisfying to watch the love interests find their harmony.
In We Got the Beat, Miller takes enemies-to-lovers back a step and serves up a delicious friends-to-rivals-to-lovers romance. As a fat lesbian who was a journalism nerd in high school, I felt so seen by this sweet story.
It’s got fake dating, it’s got family hijinx, AND it has the signature Elle Gonzalez Rose heartfelt humor. Caught in a Bad Fauxmance is a delectable hat trick of an enemies-to-lovers romance that’s near impossible to put down.
No one writes teenage angst quite like Racquel Marie does. The banter and tender moments are plentiful in this one, and it’s fun to watch the characters come together on the backdrop of a heated soccer rivalry.
Chatham Greenfield is a young adult author born and raised in Florida, which is why their stories often take place in humid seaside towns. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, they were selected as a fellow in the inaugural class of LitUp by Reese’s Book Club. You can find them wherever there’s air conditioning, wrapped up in a blanket, reading a gay love story. Connect with Chatham @chatgreenfield on socials and at chatgreenfield.com.
Today on the site I’m delighted to reveal the cover for Bitterbound by A.Z. Louise, a bi4bi Adult m/f Fantasy Romance releasing July 16, 2024! Here’s the story:
A PROMISE SEALED IN FLESH AND BLOOD
Kin Jole is an indentured assassin, forced to serve those who ripped her soul from her body and stripped her of her conscience. When Kin is ordered to kill Verias Hartwell, a beaten-down sorcerer unwillingly bound to a war machine, she sees his power as an opportunity to do the one thing that will set her free—reclaim and destroy her own soul.
Kin offers Verias a trade. She’ll spare his life in exchange for his help stealing her soul.
To retrieve it, Verias must join the very guild of sorcerers that turned Kin into a killer. With the fate of her soul in his hands, Kin must now protect Verias from enemies new and old, including a former friend with a bitter grudge.
But the closer Verias gets to Kin’s soul, the closer he gets to her darkest secrets. And if the enemies closing in on all sides don’t destroy them, those secrets just might.
And here’s the cover, designed by the author themself!
A.Z. Louise is an author, poet, and artistic nuisance living in a cheese lover’s paradise. In their spare time, they are a collector of fountain pens, impractical hobbies, and useless facts, all of which they are guilty of inserting into their written works. Links to those works can be found at azlouise.com
Today on the site, I’m delighted to welcome author and gay blogging pioneer Lee Wind to the site to reveal the cover of A Different Kind of Brave, a romantic YA adventure releasing March 5, 2024 from Duet Books! Here’s the story:
Nicolas “Nico” Hall is sixteen when he escapes from Dr. H’s religious gay reprogramming institute in California. On his own, he assumes one identity after another to avoid recapture as he flees south to Peru, and then Mexico.
Seven days younger than Nico, Samuel “Sam” Jonas Solomon is a privileged Upper West Side only child who idolizes James Bond. When his heart is broken, he vows that, like Bond, he’s never going to trust in love again. Then he meets Nico, and his heart won’t listen to any logic.
Nico’s survived by living only for himself—until his love for Sam has him risking his freedom for others. And as much as Sam wants to be like 007, he discovers that James Bond is a terrible role model.
Together, Nico and Sam set out to free the other teens trapped in Dr. H’s Institute, plunging readers into a globe-trotting, high stakes adventure with the heroic courage of the James Bond movies and the ongoing romance (and queer group of friends) of Heartstopper.
Lee Wind is not currently a spy, but he did spend fourteen years undercover (what most people call “in the closet”). Today he writes the books that would have changed his life as a young gay kid. He is the author of the nonfiction Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection No Way, They Were Gay? and the novel Publisher’s Weekly named a Top Five Independently Published Young Adult Book of 2018, Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill. He also runs the popular blog I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell Do I Read?—words his teenage self only dreamed of saying. Lee lives in Los Angeles with his husband of more than twenty-five years, and they have a grown daughter. Visit Lee online at leewind.org.
Happy Agender Pride Day! In its honor, may I shove your face in the general direction one of the most delightful YAs of all time, which happens to contain magic and baking a queer found family and an agender baker with a massive crush on a demisexual transmasc bike messenger? Treat yourself to The Heartbreak Bakery by AR Capetta!
Syd (no pronouns, please) has always dealt with big, hard-to-talk-about things by baking. Being dumped is no different, except now Syd is baking at the Proud Muffin, a queer bakery and community space in Austin. And everyone who eats Syd’s breakup brownies . . . breaks up. Even Vin and Alec, who own the Proud Muffin. And their breakup might take the bakery down with it. Being dumped is one thing; causing ripples of queer heartbreak through the community is another. But the cute bike delivery person, Harley (he or they, check the pronoun pin, it’s probably on the messenger bag), believes Syd about the magic baking. And Harley believes Syd’s magical baking can fix things, too—one recipe at a time.
I’m just a nerd, standing in front of a bench press, asking it not to humiliate me in front of my gym crush
Chatham Greenfield is a young adult author born and raised in Florida, which is why their stories often take place in humid seaside towns. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, they were selected as a fellow in the inaugural class of LitUp by Reese’s Book Club. You can find them wherever there’s air conditioning, wrapped up in a blanket, reading a gay love story. Connect with Chatham @chatgreenfield on socials and at chatgreenfield.com.
Lee Wind
Syd (no pronouns, please) has always dealt with big, hard-to-talk-about things by baking. Being dumped is no different, except now Syd is baking at the Proud Muffin, a queer bakery and community space in Austin. And everyone who eats Syd’s breakup brownies . . . breaks up. Even Vin and Alec, who own the Proud Muffin. And their breakup might take the bakery down with it. Being dumped is one thing; causing ripples of queer heartbreak through the community is another. But the cute bike delivery person, Harley (he or they, check the pronoun pin, it’s probably on the messenger bag), believes Syd about the magic baking. And Harley believes Syd’s magical baking can fix things, too—one recipe at a time.