A love story with a bisexual twist, set in Amsterdam.

A forbidden love entraps her…only he can sabotage the life she’s supposed to lead! Aliah, a successful psychologist, who is great at helping others but not herself, is caught between two worlds. Her parents have “arranged” her to marry a nice, handsome doctor who will fit in well with the family. She has grown fond of Sam but her heart still lies with her old college flame, Ary, her first love. Aliah finds herself at a crossroads but with the help of her two best friends, Talia and Mirlande, she must find the strength to make a decision that will forever change her destiny. Will she choose Sam to maintain the peace in her family? Or will the fire that once faded rise from her innermost desires to wreak havoc on her life? Along the way, Talia and Mirlande, will begin to experience their own conflicts. Talia, whose past catches up to her, fights for her life from physical and psychological injuries she has incurred. Mirlande, after years of attracting the “wrong” type of men, may have finally met the perfect man or at least she thinks. These three best friends, who come from different walks of life, are on a journey to help each other overcome their obstacles and find true love… but fate has other plans for them.

Stonewall Honor Book * A Time Magazine Best YA Book of All Time "A book for warriors, divas, artists, queens, individuals, activists, trend setters, and anyone searching for the courage to be themselves.”—Mackenzi Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue It’s 1989 in New York City, and for three teens, the world is changing. Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He’s terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he’s gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media’s images of men dying of AIDS. Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Judy has never imagined finding romance...until she falls for Reza and they start dating. Art is Judy’s best friend, their school’s only out and proud teen. He’ll never be who his conservative parents want him to be, so he rebels by documenting the AIDS crisis through his photographs. As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won’t break Judy’s heart—and destroy the most meaningful friendship he’s ever known. This is a bighearted, sprawling epic about friendship and love and the revolutionary act of living life to the fullest in the face of impossible odds.

I’ve been a problem baby, a lousy son, a distant brother, an off-putting neighbor, a piss-poor student, a worrisome seatmate, an unreliable employee, a bewildering lover, a frustrating confidante and a crappy husband. Among the things I do pretty well at this point I’d have to list darts, re-closing Stay-Fresh boxes, and staying out of the way. This is the self-eulogy offered early on by the unwilling hero of the opening story in this collection, a dazzling array of work in short fiction from a master of the form. The stories in Love and Hydrogen—familiar to readers from publications ranging from McSweeney’s to The New Yorker to Harper’s to Tin House—encompass in theme and compassion what an ordinary writer would seem to need several lifetimes to imagine. A frustrated wife makes use of an enterprising illegal-gun salesman to hold her husband hostage; two hapless adult-education students botch their attempts at rudimentary piano but succeed in a halting, awkward romance; a fascinated and murderous Creature welcomes the first human visitors to his Black Lagoon; and in the title story, the stupefyingly huge airship Hindenburg flies to its doom, representing in 1937 mankind's greatest yearning as well as its titanic failure. Generous in scope and astonishing in ambition, Shepard’s voice never falters; the virtuosity of Love and Hydrogen cements his reputation as, in the words of Rick Bass, “a passionate writer with a razor-sharp wit and an elephantine heart”—in short, one of the most powerful talents at work today.

“A riveting ride through the stars.” —Kirkus Reviews Black Mirror meets What If It’s Us in this gripping, romantic, and wildly surprising novel about two boys lost in space trying to find their way home—while falling in love—from the critically acclaimed author of We Are the Ants. When Noa closes his eyes on Earth and wakes up on a spaceship called Qriosity just as it’s about to explode, he’s pretty sure things can’t get much weirder. Boy is he wrong. Trapped aboard Qriosity are also DJ and Jenny, neither of whom remember how they got onboard the ship. Together, the three face all the dangers of space, along with murder, aliens, a school dance, and one really, really bad day. But none of this can prepare Noa for the biggest challenge—falling in love. And as Noa’s feelings for DJ deepen, he has to contend not just with the challenges of the present, but also with his memories of the past. However, nothing is what it seems on Qriosity, and the truth will upend all of their lives forever. Love is complicated enough without also trying to stay alive.

What makes a romance novel a romance? How do you write a kissing book?Writing a well-structured romance isn't the same as writing any other genre-something the popular novel and screenwriting guides don't address. The romance arc is made up of its own story beats, and the external plot and theme need to be braided to the romance arc-not the other way around.Told in conversational (and often irreverent) prose, Romancing the Beat can be read like you are sitting down to coffee with romance editor and author Gwen Hayes while she explains story structure. The way she does with her clients. Some of whom are regular inhabitants of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.Romancing the Beat is a recipe, not a rigid system. The beats don't care if you plot or outline before you write, or if you pants your way through the drafts and do a "beat check" when you're revising. Pantsers and plotters are both welcome. So sit down, grab a cuppa, and let's talk about kissing books.

From Sunday Times and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Things We Never Got Over Dominic: I got her fired. Okay, so I'd had a bad day, but there's nothing innocent about Ally Morales. Maybe her colourful, annoying, inexplicably alluring personality brightens up the magazine's offices that have felt like a prison for the past year. Maybe I like that she argues with me in front of the editorial staff. And maybe my after-hours fantasies are haunted by her brown eyes and sharp tongue. She's working herself to death at half a dozen dead-end jobs for some secret reason. And I'm going to fix it all. Don't accuse me of caring. She's nothing more than a puzzle to be solved. If I can get her to quit, I can finally peel away all those layers. Then I can go back to salvaging the family name and forget all about the dancing, beer-slinging brunette. Ally: Ha. Hold my beer, Grumpy Grump Face.