Showing titles in Coming of Age

Always on the periphery, looking on, young Frankie Howe was never quite sure enough of herself to take center stage—after all, life had already judged her harshly. Now old, Frankie finds it easier to forget the life that came before. Then Damian, a young Irish caretaker, arrives at her London flat, there to keep an eye on her as she recovers from a fall. A memory is sparked, and the past crackles into life as Damian listens to the story Frankie has kept stored away all these years.

Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

Clayton Stumper might be in his twenties, but he dresses like your grandpa and fusses like your aunt. Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by a group of eccentric enigmatologists and now finds himself among the last survivors of a fading institution. When the esteemed crossword compiler and main maternal presence in Clayton’s life, Pippa Allsbrook, passes away, she bestows her final puzzle on him: a promise to reveal the mystery of his parentage and prepare him for life beyond the walls of the commune.

Set in a remote village in the north of England, Open, Heaven unfolds over the course of one year in which two teenage boys meet and transform each other’s lives. James—a sheltered, shy sixteen-year-old—is alone in his newly discovered sexuality, full of an unruly desire but entirely inexperienced. As he is beginning to understand himself and his longings, he also realizes how his feelings threaten to separate him from his family and the rural community he has grown up in. He dreams of another life, fantasizing about what lies beyond the village’s leaf-ribboned boundaries.

First times, fast times, past times...Boston, 1975. Nicky DeMarco, a naïve but game 18-year-old, is navigating his first semester of college when he falls into a surprising—and life-altering—romantic triangle with Joe, a charismatic, big-hearted jock, and Lori, a warm and adventurous psych student. The three embark on a secret, joyous, and passionate journey of self-discovery as Nicky questions his sexuality—and all that entails.

Nia Da Silva is dead… Dead serious about moving on from her past, from roller derby, and the traumatic injury that was a crushing blow to not just her body but her mind. Running away from her problems wasn't the fix she had hoped for. Five years later, she returns to the town that left her with permanent scars. Healing her physical wounds was the bare minimum. She'll finally have to face herself and rediscover who she's always been beneath the lies she's worn like shredded fishnets over bruised knees.

Nathan’s used to being alone. Drifting from town to town following his salesman father, he seeks solace in his studies when he can’t find understanding in his own home; his father is abusive and an alcoholic and his mother would rather disappear into the background than protect him. Enter Roy. The older boy next door might have a girlfriend at school and at church, but there’s no question that they’re drawn to one another, and the two quickly become entangled in a covert relationship.

In the shadow of an ancient abbey nestled between rivers, Daniel is growing up. He is highly intelligent but little understood by his parents, and a secret passion burns inside him for love and recognition. When his father loses his job as the headmaster of the local school, his family stumbles into a rural life for which they are ill-prepared. Daniel’s sole solace is the arrival of Philip, a new boy at school, whom he worships with a confused intensity.

Lorel has always dreamed of becoming a witch—learning magic, fighting monsters, and exploring the world beyond the small town where she and her mother run the stables. Even though a strange plague is killing the trees in the Kingdom of Cekon and witches are being blamed for it, Lorel wants nothing more than to join them. There’s only one problem: all witches are women, and she was born a boy. When the coven comes to claim her best friend, Lorel disguises herself in a dress and joins in her friend’s place, leaving home and her old self behind.

The proof is irrefutable: Jill Shalvis is a USA Today best-selling author whose romantic fiction is one part steam, one part soul-lifting laughter. After leaving an abusive relationship, Maddie Moore heads to Lucky Harbor, Washington, and vows to channel her inner tough girl—and land the man of her dreams.

Landon Griffin has everything going for him. He's a high school senior on the brink of receiving a football scholarship, his dad is running for mayor of Madison, Texas, and his future with his girlfriend looks bright. But his simple life shatters when feelings spark for a guy he's never met. Giving the stranger the codename Mystery Boy, Landon hesitates to step out of his comfort zone to solve the mystery. Living in a conservative town, he struggles to hide his new obsession while trying to figure out where he fits within the spectrum of sexuality.

Luc O'Donnell is tangentially - and reluctantly - famous. His rock-star parents split when he was young, and the father he's never met spent the next 20 years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad's making a comeback, Luc's back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything. To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice normal relationship...and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He's a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and someone who has never inspired a moment of scandal in his life. He’s perfect boyfriend material.

When Eli Harpo was four, he underwent emergency open-heart surgery, flatlined on the operating table, and for a brief time, went to heaven and met Jesus. Or at least that's what his father, a loving but devout Baptist minister, has raised him to believe. Nine years later, Eli isn't so sure. His rounds with his father to evangelize at hospices and sell his father's self-published book, Heaven or Bust!, feel inauthentic and strange, especially now that he's started having sex dreams about Jesus.

Twenty-year-old Daniel Serban loses his dancing job and threats of being outed to his family force him to flee Limerick, Ireland. Daniel fears his father and the other gypsy men will force him to marry his betrothed, or bring bodily harm to him for being gay. As chance would have it, he ends up in Cleary’s Pub, a gay leather bar in Galway where he meets the grouchy, ginger-bear Ronan O’Riley. Daniel had no idea how much meeting the Dom would transform his life.

In between the space of time when Ezra lights themself on fire and when Ezra dies, the world of this book flashes before their eyes. Everyone Ezra’s ever loved, every place they’ve felt queer and at home, or queer and out of place, reveals itself in an instant. Unfolding in fragments of memory, Ezra dissolves into the family, religion, desire, losses, pains, and joys that made them into the person that’s decided on this final act of protest.

Do you know who you are? Are you comfortable in your skin? Outed by her best friend in front of the whole neighborhood, Niya is trying to come to terms with being a lesbian. When she falls for her straight neighbor, Jamilla, there is no more denying who she really is. Niya will do whatever it takes to prove her love, even if it means taking a life. What will happen when family issues, fame, the struggle for love, and reality set in? How will Niya deal with a hip-hop career as she tries to repair her broken heart and family issues?

I never thought I’d find love. I spent all of high school watching others pair up, my little gay heart slowly withering in despair… until the fateful summer night that I met Tim. His meaty muscles and smoldering silver eyes already haunt my dreams. And I know for a fact that he’s lonely like me. I’ve been taking care of Tim ever since he got into an accident that was technically my fault, but the healing he needs goes so much deeper than that. I need him too. With any luck, I’ll end senior year with the man of my dreams at my side.

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.

Julian is ugly. He knows it. Everyone knows it. He is also a boy with secrets. He's gay, his family owns the local funeral home, and he's not certain which secret he more desperately desires to keep. Julian is a wallflower, but tries out for the soccer team to please his father. Beyond all hope, he makes the team - and there he meets boys who change his life forever and a coach he suspects is trying to kill him.

"Chiamami col tuo nome" è il racconto dell'attrazione improvvisa e travolgente che sboccia tra due ragazzi, il diciassettenne Elio, figlio di un professore universitario, in vacanza con la famiglia nella loro villa in Riviera e un giovane ospite, invitato per l'estate, il ventiquattrenne Oliver, che sta lavorando alla sua tesi postdottorato. Quell'estate della metà degli anni Ottanta viene rievocata, a distanza di vent'anni, dal più giovane dei protagonisti.