New Adult books

High school best friends Toby Billings and Jim Maverick went their separate ways after graduation. Five years later, they meet by chance. Toby needs a ride, and Jim offers to give him one.

During a journey across several states, with stops at roadside diners, state parks, and cheap motels, small talk turns to serious discussions of lives that didn’t turn out the way either of them dreamed. Their choices are catching up to them, and neither is on an innocent summer vacation. Renewing their friendship will mean painful admissions and secrets coming to light. Yet they discover they have more in common now than they ever guessed, and going their separate ways at the trip’s end won’t be easy.

After aimlessly wandering the country, all roads lead back home. But first they must decide what home means.

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A Harmony Ink Press Title

It’s 2015, and teenage Jake Hardy is hiding something. During a summer trip to the Titanic Mecca of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Jake’s father makes a confession, and though Jake feels upset and confused, he also wants to be understanding. But he feels deceived—much like he’s deceiving those he cares about. Jake is gay, just not ready to tell the world.

Jake and his father are far from alone in their secrets, as Jake discovers back in Texas, where the fight for and against the Equal Rights Ordinance rages. He’s surprised to learn how much the outcome will affect his friends, and he’s torn between standing with them and the wishes of his religious fanatic mother. Being true to himself won’t be easy or painless, and it will come with sacrifices—and rewards.

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A Harmony Ink Press Title

After the death of his older brother in Iraq, Emmett Callaghan’s mother cracked under the stress and abandoned the family—saddling sixteen-year-old Emmett with the care of a father suffering from worsening dementia. Poor in a town where the lines between the privileged and the struggling are sharp and unmovable, Emmett has nowhere to turn, and he cannot let the authorities know his mother is no longer in the picture.

Then a light shines into his bleak life with the arrival of Noah Davis. Mixed race, liberal, worldly, and openly gay, Noah is like no one else in conservative Whitmore—and like no one Emmett’s ever met. Emmett is helpless to keep Noah and the happiness and support he offers out of Emmett’s dark and hidden world. But when secrets start to surface, will the obstacles the two young men face be more than love and good intentions can overcome?

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A Harmony Ink Press Title

High school senior Renzy Callen hasn’t uttered a word in years. He likes being invisible to all around him; it keeps life safe and predictable. In his attic bedroom, he experiences a world far from the drama of his family. He doodles, listens to music, and contemplates the troubled souls he observes when attending self-help meetings designed for people with problems he doesn’t have. Renzy lives his life like a spectator, always on the outside of life’s games, looking in at others.

Everything changes when Seven and Morning Moreau-Maddox relocate from their glitzy lives in Paris to boring, picturesque Redcliff Hills, Missouri. Tall, platinum blond, and as put-together as a pair of European high-fashion models, the sophisticated siblings befriend Renzy, drawing him in and then pushing him away. What starts as nothing more than a means to an end for Seven, however, quickly becomes something more. Could icy-hearted Seven be thawing for the silent, quirky charm of Renzy Callen?

Determined to find the cause of Renzy’s selective mutism, the three teens set off on a road trip, during which they discover that flawless physical facades can conceal the most scarred souls, and that sometimes silence is better than golden.

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A Harmony Ink Press Title

Growing up means overcoming obstacles: facing reality even when it hurts, being brave enough to stand up for yourself, and being your own man even when going along with others’ expectations is easier.

Geordi is learning these lessons the hard way when his overbearing but well-meaning parents out him before he’s ready. It leads to a declaration of love from Geordi’s best friend Toff—a love that isn’t reciprocated. But with a neglectful father at home, Toff is already struggling, and Geordi can’t bear to break his heart, so he goes along with the romance—until things move to the next level and it’s too hard to live the lie. Geordi must take a long hard look at his life and face some truths that would be easier to avoid, because a disastrous event will mean his friends Toff and Jess need someone to lean on like never before. For Geordi to be that person, he must figure out how to be true to himself.

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Made In China: Book One

Destiny will be decided by a battle between heart and mind….

Jun Tai “Styx” Wong loves two things: playing the drums, and his best friend, Jin. But being a good Chinese son means he can’t have either—he’ll have to marry a girl of his parents’ choosing and settle into a traditional job. His move to the bigger city of Suzhou is both a blessing and curse, as living with Jin makes it harder for Styx to suppress his desires. Nearly dying while trying to eradicate his feelings serves as a wake-up call for Jin, who takes extreme measures to keep Styx safe from harm.

When given a second chance at life and happiness, will Styx be able to claim the future he wants with Jin, his bandmates, and his music? Can love and hope grow with the constantly looming threat of Styx’s parents ordering him home? Great things await—if Styx finds the courage to break down the wall that stands between him and everything he wants.

Second Edition
First Edition published by MLR Press, 2013.

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Dass Carson Cress ihn nach einem Date fragt, ist so ziemlich das Letzte, womit Vincent Wade gerechnet hätte. Vince ist ein ehrgeiziger Biologiestudent und eher ein Einzelgänger. Quarterback Carson ist ein Superstar und lebt unter ständiger Beobachtung der Öffentlichkeit. Das kann auf keinen Fall funktionieren. Aber Vince muss feststellen, dass manchmal einfach jemand in dein Leben gewalzt kommt und dich auf eine wilde Achterbahnfahrt der Gefühle mitnimmt, und du dich entweder gut festhältst oder dein Herz dabei verlierst.

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A Before… and After Story

At what point are differences irreparable?

Tom McAllister and Nick Corwin have always had a comfortable friendship, even though Nick is a Native American webcomic artist and Tom’s father is a rigid Christian. But they’re about to discover growing up means more challenges than choosing a college major. It might mean making decisions that change pivotal relationships—or sever them.

When a bully confronts Tom and Nick and a dark, unsettling aspect of Tom emerges, Nick is shaken enough to end their friendship. As both young men struggle to balance their own dreams with the expectations of their families—both in terms of career and faith—they recognize the emptiness that parting ways has left in their lives. But when reconciliation leads to confessions that might mean something more than friendship between them, will it make their path easier to navigate or more difficult?

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A Harmony Ink Press Title

Harmony Ink Press is proud to present the winners of the fourth annual Young Author Challenge. This book contains the best of the best in short LGBTQ+ fiction by authors from age fourteen to twenty-one. They represent the future of both our literature and our community, and the future looks as bright as these voices are strong, inventive, and unique. These fifteen stories range from the realistic to the fantastical, and they are populated with characters from all across the rainbow. They explore love, friendship, being different, finding one’s purpose and place, and what it means to grow up—in the modern world or one of pure imagination.

See excerpt for individual blurbs.

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A Before… and After Story

It was only a game. Wasn’t it?

At a party one night, Charlie Dean’s childhood friend Will Tucker accepts a dare and dresses up as a girl: clothes, hair, makeup. Seeing Will that way incites a riot of confused emotions in Charlie—and he responds by lashing out. He never meant to hurt Will, and now he must do some serious damage control.

During a school trip by train, Charlie and Will share a sleeper cabin. Charlie intends to mend fences, while Will figures it’s as good a time as any to broach the subjects of attraction and sexuality. They want to get their relationship back on track. But after the secrets they both reveal, their friendship can never be the same.

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The Knowledge Effect: Book Two

Martus understands the desire to forget the past. After all, until recently he stole to support his makeshift family. His boyfriend, Hal, has a history of losing control over his dragon transformations and causing destruction neither of them likes thinking about, and even his little sister, Elsaben, is struggling to harness her magickal gifts. 

But personal issues must be pushed aside when Martus’s wealthy patron hires their group to find her son, the legendary hero Fitzy. Is he in trouble or just sick and tired of the burden of fame? Perhaps his estranged sister, Mel, can help them track him down. 

An already difficult mission becomes an uphill battle when their demons refuse to be ignored. Even Mel is keeping secrets, and all of them are about to discover that forgetting the past won’t stop it from catching up at the worst possible time.

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WMU: Book Two

Violinist Logan has spent most of his life training for a career in music. But as the pressure mounts during his junior year, he questions whether playing in an orchestra is the future he wants, or one chosen by his parents. His new roommate—that annoying jerk Peter from last year’s production of Guys and Dolls—complicates matters. Crammed into a dorm room with the overconfident but undeniably hot accounting major, Logan can’t stop snarling. 

Then Peter sprains his ankle building sets, and Logan grudgingly agrees to play chauffeur. But instead of putting further strain on their relationship, spending time together reveals some common ground—and mutual frustration. Logan discovers he isn’t the only one who doesn’t know what he wants from life, and the animosity between him and Peter changes keys. But just as the possibility of a happier future appears, Logan gets a dream offer that will take him away from Western Massachusetts University—and Peter. Now he has to decide: will he live the solitary life laid out for him, or hold on to Peter and forge his own path?

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Sam, a geeky college freshman, has bigger problems than lusting after Marcus, sexy jock, college junior, and his big brother’s best friend. Chasing after a beanie caught in the winter wind turns into a tumble down the rabbit hole for them both—science fiction style.

Sam and Marcus find themselves trapped on a tropical island in the middle of a strange ocean on an alien moon. The sole structure is a ruined temple devoted to the art of love. Flustered, confused, and unable to return home, they need to figure out a means of escape from a hostile jungle teeming with dangerous life-forms.

In this tale where opposites attract and secret crushes are revealed, two very dissimilar young men discover they actually have a lot in common after all, but it will take their differences as much as their points of connection to survive on an island in the stars.

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Sequel to Planting His Dream
Planting Dreams: Book Two

Love can grow in even the harshest conditions.

Life has been a struggle for Lachlan Buttar ever since his mother passed away and left him unprepared to take care of himself. He’s gone from homeless to staying with a local minister, but it soon becomes clear he will be better off, and safer, on his own. Fortunately Foster and Javi agree to take Lachlan in and offer him a real home on their dairy farm.

It’s there that Lachlan meets another of the workers, local farmer Abe Armitage. Though the attraction between them is instant, Abe refuses to act on it until Lachlan returns his interest. By then, strong feelings have taken root, and a passionate romance quickly blossoms. But both men carry baggage that could crush any chance of happiness together, particularly since Lachlan witnessed a crime, and there are those who will do anything to make sure he cannot reveal what he’s seen.

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Three misfits, mismatched in every way—Henry Perkins, Brody Decker, and Danny Denisco—have been friends throughout high school. Now in their senior year, the boys realize their relationship is changing, that they’re falling in love. But they face opposition at every turn—from outside and from within themselves. Moving to the next level will take all the courage, understanding, and commitment they can muster. But it could happen.

Henry is a star athlete and the son of religious parents who have little concern for the future he wants. Brody is a quirky dreamer and adrenaline junkie, and Danny is an emo artist and the target of bullies. Despite their differences, they’ve always had each other’s backs, and with each of them facing a new and unique set of challenges, that support is more important than ever. Is it worth risking the friendship they all depend on for the physical and romantic relationship they all desire?

In this unconventional new adult romance, three gay teens brave societal backlash—as well as the chance that they might lose their treasured friendship—to embark on a committed polyamorous relationship.

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Violence is hard to escape because of the scars it leaves—on the body, the mind, and the heart.

Small, skinny, and timid, Matt is the school’s punching bag. He suffers in silence and holds no hope anyone will come to his aid. The last thing on his mind is finding someone special. He’s sure it’s impossible, so why bother trying?

Shane is no stranger to pain. At his old school, he broke a football player’s arms for tormenting his friend, and with his size and multiple tattoos, he looks every bit the thug everyone—Matt included—assumes he is.

Building trust isn’t easy, but a sweet yet passionate romance slowly unfolds. Their road isn’t without bumps, but Matt and Shane navigate them together, finding happiness and security in each other—until another act of violence and its aftermath threatens to tear their lives—and their love—apart once and for all. But like the symbols etched into Shane’s skin, some things are made to last.

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Only a chosen few can prevent an ancient evil from overtaking the world: the Singers, the Seekers, and the Saviors….

Tyrell Hughes and Jeremy Michalak are both juniors at Winton Yowell High School in Chicago, and aside from sharing a homeroom, they couldn’t be more different. Tyrell is well-liked, surrounded by friends, popular with girls, and looking forward to a bright future. Jeremy transfers to Winton Yowell to escape the troubles of his past. He’s hoping to survive his last two years of high school by flying under his new classmates’ gaydar and indulging in his passion: playing clarinet.

Tyrell and Jeremy struggle to ignore their attraction to each other. But that becomes increasingly difficult as young people across the city start dying. Both teens realize they alone know the true cause of the tragedies—and have the ability to put a stop to them. They’re the city’s only chance to defeat the dark forces threatening it, but to succeed, they’ll need to find common ground and reconcile the desires they’re trying to deny.

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A Before… and After Story

A kiss is just a kiss. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Does it?

At seventeen, Merry’s never been kissed. Since he doesn’t want to disappoint his prom date, he asks his more experienced best friend, Boone, for some pointers. Surprisingly, Boone agrees to give him a hands-on lesson.

But they have no idea what they’re getting into.

They explore hundreds of ways to make out, but somehow it isn’t enough. A week later, they’re back together for another session. This time things go further than either of them planned, and their relationship becomes awkward and uncomfortable.

Have they learned enough to salvage their friendship and help it evolve? Their lessons have come to an end. They can either part ways forever… or share a true love’s kiss.

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