Tag Archives: high school

RELEASE BLITZ: Somewhere in Nowhere by Steven Gellman

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Title: Somewhere in Nowhere

Author: Steven Gellman

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 04/14/2026

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 238

Genre: Contemporary YA, Genre/lit, young adult, family-drama, gay, lesbian, high school, lesbian mothers, coming out, funeral, friendship group, friends to lovers

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Description

Coming out is hard, especially when you have two gay moms. At least it is for Simon Bugg. He doesn’t want the world to think that having gay parents has turned him gay. And he certainly doesn’t want anyone to know about the alien in his stomach that’s trying to kill him.

It’s Simon’s senior year and his world just turned upside down. When his mom scores a dream job, Simon lands at a new school away from the only friends he has ever known. Now, his mom is overworked and chronically stressed, and his deadbeat dad is back on the scene. Navigating a new school and new friends is a challenge for a neurotic overthinker, and Simon finds himself turning to his rescue cat and a local barista for support. But when Simon meets the handsome PJ in drama class, he gets talked into a date that he derails in spectacular fashion.

With a little help from his friends—new and old—Simon finds his way back to PJ. But how can he have a real relationship with the boy of his dreams when he’s convinced he’s going to die? No one knows about the nightly alien attacks at 11:22. Why then, and why do they keep getting worse? Simon must face a dark secret inside before he loses his chance with the boy he loves.

Excerpt

Somewhere in Nowhere
Steven Gellman © 2026
All Rights Reserved

11.22 p.m.

Fat drops of rain splatter across the windshield as I watch the speedometer creep ever higher. Curfew has come and gone. It’s no longer a question of will I get home late, but rather, how late will I be. Carole will be cool about it, but Mom will lose her shit. I push ahead faster. The cool air is exhilarating as it rushes through my window and works its way in and around each tight curl on my head. I feel practically airborne as I race against the clock. I haven’t forgotten Mom’s threat to take my car from me if I keep missing my curfew. I can do this. Just a little faster and I’ll be home. If I’m lucky, I might even sneak in unnoticed. Unlikely, but possible.

The sky opens and rain sheets across the windshield in torrents that the wipers try, but fail, to slice through. I fumble with the crank to roll the window up against the spray pelting my face. The dashboard clock advances to 11:22 and the air is sucked from my lungs. Time seems to slow, and I glance at the photo tucked into the visor. My throat is closing! Mags, Neel, and I had crammed into the photo booth for one last picture before I moved away. I can’t breathe! We’re making silly faces, but the raindrops splattering the photo make it look like we’re crying. I can’t breathe! Instinctively, I let go of the wheel and reach for my throat when I feel movement. In my stomach. Scratching. It feels like something wants out.

The car careens to the right. The abrupt shift in my trajectory snaps my attention back to the road. The headlights cast a glimmering runway on the wet asphalt. I slam on the brakes, and the car begins to spin out of control. A cold sweat trickles down my neck. Tires scream against the rough surface below as a panorama of cutting rain and passing lights spills across my field of vision. This is it. I’m going to die.

The car comes to an abrupt halt. I’m looking back toward the way I just came, but the angle is wrong. My eyes lock back on the clock. Still 11:22. My breath returns in shallow clips, but at least I’m breathing. Come on, Simon. Get it together. I gather my bearings and quickly realize that I’ve slid off the road and into the ditch. I take stock of the situation. I didn’t hit anything. Nothing hurts, and the car seems fine, but I am wrecked. I press on the accelerator, the tires spin, but the car doesn’t budge. Shit! I have to make it home, and fast. If Mom takes the car from me, I’ll never see Mags and Neel again. I press harder, the engine revs, and the tires grind deeper into the mud. I’m completely stuck. Now I’m really going to be in trouble. I lean my head against the steering wheel.

My shock gives way to self-pity and fear. Something warm drips down my face and onto my lips. It tastes metallic. Blood? No. Not metallic, salty. I lick the tears from my lips. Movement from beyond the now-fogged-up windows has my hair standing on end.

“Who’s there!” I cry out.

No one answers.

A shadow moves across the windshield, and I close my eyes in fear. When I reopen them, flashes of red and blue blur my vision. A bright light shines through my driver-side window, hurting my eyes. I put my hand up to shield from the glare.

“Kid, are you all right?” a voice says.

The light fades, and I put my hand down to see a police officer lowering her flashlight. I roll down my window.

“Looks like someone’s had quite the adventure. Are you hurt?”

My words stick in my throat like a thick spoonful of peanut butter.

“I’m going to ask you again. Are you hurt?”

Then the word vomit begins. “I’m okay now, but I was rushing home to beat curfew, and then the car was spinning, and I couldn’t breathe, and there was something…”

“Slow down.” She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Tell me what happened. You said there was something?”

I can’t tell her the truth. My face flushes with embarrassment. “There was…a deer,” I lie.

“A deer?”

“Yes, that’s it. I swerved to avoid a deer and now I’m stuck.” I can’t possibly tell her that I thought something was scratching from the inside.

“I see.” She seems dubious. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I think I’m fine. Just shaken up.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“No, officer, I promise.”

“Well, I’m still going to need you to blow into this.”

She holds out a small metal box with a plastic tube on top. I do as she asks.

“Okay, good. Now I’ll need your license and registration.”

“Am I in trouble?” I hand her what she asks for.

“Just sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

She strides over to her cruiser. She’s gone so long; I can’t begin to imagine what she’s doing back there. I chew the corner of my thumbnail. She must be writing a ticket. Or worse, preparing to take me to jail! My brain won’t stop catastrophizing.

“You good?” Reappearing at my window, she hands me my license and registration but doesn’t wait for my answer. “I called for a tow truck to pull you back onto the road; it should be here soon. I would also like to call your parents. You seem shaken, and I don’t want you back on the road alone once we get you out of this ditch.”

Oh my God, why is this happening to me? I begin to cry, and she pats my shoulder.

“Hey, come on, stop that. Everything is fine. This could be a lot worse. You know that, right?”

I nod and rub the tears from my cheeks.

“Do you have a phone?”

I nod again.

“Please dial a parent or guardian and I’ll talk to them so you don’t have to.”

I pull my phone from my pocket, tap my contacts, and hand her the phone. “It’s my mom.”

She takes the phone and steps away out of earshot. I watch her pace back and forth talking on my phone in the rain that has slowed to a soft mist. I don’t even want to think about Mom’s reaction to getting a phone call from a police officer. I shiver as she walks back to me.

“Your mom is on her way. She’ll be here shortly. So, what do you kids like to talk about these days? Here, I have one for you. I have two dogs named Taylor and Swift. Funny story…”

This is going to be a long wait.

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NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Steven Gellman is an award-winning songwriter turned author whose stories hum with the same heart and honesty found in his music. Inspired by the books of Judy Blume that once kept him company through his own adolescence, Steven now writes coming-of-age fiction that gives voice to LGBTQ+ teens finding their way in an ever-changing world.

When not writing novels or performing music, Steven can be found in a comfy chair with a book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. Steven lives in Maryland’s Piedmont region with his husband and a houseful of rescued companion animals.

Somewhere in Nowhere is his first novel.

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Release Blitz: Summer Storms by Thomas Grant Bruso #LGBTQ #contemporaryromance @ninestarpress @GoIndiMarketing

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Title: Summer Storms

Author: Thomas Grant Bruso

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 09/20/2021

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 39900

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, high school, grief, coming of age, hurt/comfort, harassment

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Description

Sixteen-year-old Earl Layman is going stir-crazy. Secluded with the flu inside the four walls of his home and only the escape of his video games to help him through, Earl is struggling to keep his sanity.

That is until he notices the boy next door, seventeen-year-old Rex Chambers, raking leaves in the adjacent yard.

Earl’s summer is about to change. Before another torrential rainstorm hits the small upstate New York town of Betham County, they meet during an awkward cell phone exchange. As they start to connect through occasional texts, Earl and Rex enter the throes of adolescent lust.

In the early stages of forging a lasting connection, their family situations threaten to destroy all they are working for.

Excerpt

Summer Storms
Thomas Grant Bruso © 2021
All Rights Reserved

EARL

Earl was a funny name for a sixteen-year-old boy. It reminded Earl of an older man, like his late uncle Fred who died when Earl was two years old.

As he stared down at a photo album spread open across his lap, the pictures of his uncle Fred and family reminded him of a conversation he’d had with his mother years before about death and dying.

Earl ran a finger over a photo of his uncle smiling back at him from beneath the glossy sheet of paper: white buck teeth, dark-brown eyes, thinning blond widow’s peak, and a handlebar moustache. Earl had pulled the album out of storage when memories of his life in Jessup, New York, resurfaced while he was sick from school this week. He flipped through scads of photos, faces from yesteryear, as he wiped his moist eyes with the back of his hand, reminiscing.

The idea to trek down memory lane came clear to Earl when he’d had a silent, reflective moment about his own life—his purpose, and who he was.

Six years ago when his family was living in a tiny, two-bedroom duplex in the small town of Jessup, before they moved to Betham County, Earl and his mother had a long conversation about life and death. Earl asked the most obvious question: “Why does everybody have to die?”

“Even the good guys like Uncle Fred die,” she’d said.

The conversation with his mother had been triggered by his finding their cat, Shells, unresponsive, just after he’d stumbled out of bed early one morning to use the bathroom. Shells was lying on the floor, curled up in a corner. Earl crouched next to her and ran his hand through her soft black-and-white fur. She did not move, so Earl yelled for his parents. He recalled the sad expressions on their faces when they came running to him.

Earl cried when he and his father had to bury Shells in the backyard, a fragment of memories now many miles behind them. Earl had sat with his mother that morning as she answered his questions, the importance of death, and the grief that comes with losing life’s precious things.

“Like Uncle Fred and Shells,” she’d said, “everything and everybody has a purpose. That’s why it’s important to love and care for everyone and everything, people and animals, every day. It’s sad to lose a pet or a family member, but it’s also natural and part of life.”

“Are you and Dad going to die like Uncle Fred and Shells?”

“One day. But not for a long time.”

His mother’s hug, the safety of her warm embrace, made Earl happy. After saying goodbye to Uncle Fred and Shells, Earl never wanted to let go of his parents. They were all he had.

Now, on this morning in early May, Earl’s thoughts returned to his past. He stared at the photos wedged beneath the glossy plastic sheets of film in the photo album.

He took a breath as he turned through pages of smiling faces—his family members in various pictures. He smiled back, deep in thought, tears falling and blotting the top of the album.

A rattling of glass bottles jarred his concentration, pulling him out of his momentary trance. He set the photo album on his bed and went to the window, gazing out into another sweltering day. Though gray clouds buckled beneath a darkening May sky that promised another rainstorm, the air was thick like clam chowder.

He was at home, sick from school for the third day this week, if his fever didn’t break. Earl had been bedridden with nowhere to go. He checked his cell phone for messages—from anybody. He missed human contact from his class friends, especially his best friend, Andy Gelman.

Traffic hummed along on the main artery of Betham County, a street over, and Earl caught a glimpse of a woman walking her dog. A young bicyclist pedaled to class. And the boy next door, Rex Chambers, on whom Earl had a small crush, bagged recycling for weekly pickup. Rex looked up at him, waved, and smiled. “Mornin’.” He placed the recycling bin by the side of the street and ambled to the fence separating the yards.

Earl’s face flushed; his skin tingled. Maybe it was the flu, or he was just feeling embarrassed. Shy. Staring at the cute guy who rode his mother’s motorcycle to school every morning this year made Earl light-headed.

“Cat got your tongue?” Rex yelled up from the neighboring yard, pulling the motorcycle away from where it was leaning against the fence and reaching for the helmet hanging on the handlebars. “You need a ride to school?”

“I…um…”

Rex tossed the black Darth Vader–like helmet back and forth in his hands like a basketball. His dark hair was slicked with a generous amount of gel, and his angelic eyes and chiseled face set the cogwheels in Earl’s rusty thoughts in motion. “I haven’t seen you around this week. Where’ve you been?” Rex asked.

Earl grinned back at the tall, handsome boy. Was Rex keeping track of how many days I’ve been out of school? “I’m sick.”

“Another day, then?”

Earl nodded, lifted a hand to wave. “See you around.”

“If you need anything, let me know.”

Earl bit down on his bottom lip. He couldn’t believe the boy next door had talked to him; he did not know Rex well. They didn’t talk every day, and when they passed each other in the hallway at Betham County High, Earl was too nervous to speak to him or engage him in conversation. He’d smile at the gorgeous guy, but it was a brief moment in his long day. A fleeting exchange of waves or grins, and both young men went their separate ways. The only class Earl and Rex shared was study hall. But by ninth period, Rex usually ditched the boring forty-five-minute class to take off on his motorcycle and ride around town.

“Feel better!” Rex yelled up to him. He put the helmet on, swung his leg over the cycle and started the engine. “I’m off! Another boring day at Betham County High.”

Earl looked away and smirked.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Thomas Grant Bruso knew at an early age he wanted to be a writer. He has been a voracious reader of genre fiction since he was a kid.

His literary inspirations are Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Ellen Hart, Jim Grimsley, Karin Fossum, Sam J. Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Connolly.

Bruso loves animals, book-reading, writing fiction, prefers Sudoku to crossword puzzles.

In another life, he was a freelance writer and wrote for magazines and newspapers. In college, he was a winner for the Hermon H. Doh Sonnet Competition. Now, he writes book reviews for his hometown newspaper, The Press Republican.

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