Beloved Disciples

A dazzling gay love story where devotion sparkles in memory, obsession dances on the edge of reality, and a young man discovers the power of first love.

Sim n fell in love the first night he stepped into the only gay club in his unnamed coastal hometown. Albi fell too, despite Sim n's quirks--the way he blinks to capture a memory, the way his hands fly when he talks, his inescapable toomuchness. Their first kiss comes on the beach, beneath mango trees. Blink. A season on their secret shore. Blink. The hidden garden Albi tends behind the rectory. Blink. Candles on a coconut cake for his twenty-sixth birthday. Blink. Blink. Blink.

But when Albi dies unexpectedly, Sim n is left wandering in memories that feel more alive than the present. Friends and family--his T a Cachita, best friend Lenita, and estranged mother--come to pull him back. He must choose: remain faithful to a love that haunts him, or rebuild a world without Albi.

With prose "that reverberates with heartfelt intensity, blurring the line between the erotic and the tender, the dreamlike and the real" (Saleem Haddad, Guapa), El as' debut novel celebrates the intensity of first love, the endurance of devotion, and the search for found family.