SKATER BOY

This YA contemporary romance puts a gay spin on Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi - perfect for fans of Sonora Reyes, Adib Khorram, and Phil Stamper.

Stonebridge High's resident bad boy, seventeen-year-old Wesley "Big Mac" Mackenzie, is failing senior yearprobably because of his unchecked anger problem, rowdy friends, and a recurring tendency to ditch his homework to fill his camera roll with random photos. So when his mom drags him to a winter production of The Nutcracker, Wes isn't interested at all...until he sees Tristan Monroe. Mr. Nutcracker himself.

Wes knows he shouldn't like Tristan; after all, he's a ballet dancer, and Wes is as closeted as they come. But when they start spending time together, Wes can't seem to get Tristan out of his head.

Driven by a new sense of purpose, Wes enters a photography contest at school, determined to better himself before the end of the school year. When a falling out with his friends becomes inevitable, Wes realizes he has to take a standin more ways than oneand learn that being himself means meeting somewhere in the middle of who he is and who he wants to be.

Can Wes trade his skateboard in for textbooks, ditch his friends for the photography kids he once bullied, and blow up the bad-boy reputation he never wanted in the first place?

Anthony Nerada became a writer after his fifth-grade teacher told him it was his destiny. Since then, he's read too many books (if there even is such a thing) and explored worlds far outside the reaches of his own. He holds a BA in psychology and two diplomas (one in public relations, the other in publishing), which allow him to write the day away while simultaneously psychoanalyzing his friends. SKATER BOY is his debut novel.