From Stonewall Award–winning author Abdi Nazemian (Only This Beautiful Moment) comes the epic queer love story of a lifetime. Perfect for fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Shahriar believes he was born in the wrong time. All he’s ever wanted is to love and be loved, but 1895 London doesn’t offer him the freedom to be his true self, and Oscar Wilde’s trial for gross indecency has only reaffirmed that. But one night—and one writer—will grant Shahriar what he’s always wished for: the opportunity to live in a time and place where he can love freely. Rechristened as Shams and then as Bram, he finds what feels like eternal happiness. But can anything truly be eternal?

Oliver doesn’t feel that 1920s Boston gives him a lot of options to be his full self. He knows he could only ever love another boy, but that would break his beloved mother’s heart. Oliver finds freedom and acceptance in the secret queer community at Harvard that his cousin introduces him to. When he meets a mysterious boy with eyes as warm as a flame, his life is irrevocably changed, forever.

Spanning one hundred and thirty years of love and longing, this tale of immortal beloveds searching for their perfect place and time is a vibrant hymn to the beauty of being alive, a celebration of queer love and community, and a reminder that behind every tragic thing that ever existed, there is something exquisite.

I read Abdi Nazemian’s “Like a Love Story” a couple of years ago and absolutely loved it. It’s still my favorite of his that I’ve read, but I really liked this one, too.

The synopsis compares this to “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, and while these comparisons are often a wide swing for marketing purposes, this one got it right. Those two influences are absolutely woven through this story, and Nazemian uses them to his advantage.

The book centers on two young men who get made immortal in a time when two men loving each other was unthinkable, with the hope that one day, somewhere down the line, they’ll cross paths in a world more willing to let them be. One starts out in 1895 London, in the immediate aftermath of the Oscar Wilde trials, when being gay could destroy your entire life. The other is in 1920s Boston, knowing he isn’t going to fall for girls and dreading what that would do to his mother. He finds his way into a private circle of other men like him at Harvard, brought in by a cousin who saw something in him, and a chance meeting with another young man rearranges his entire existence. The book then spans more than a century, following these two through decades and identities as they try to find each other again somewhere in time.

The characters are easy to root for. Even though they were immortal, they still felt real, and I was totally rooting for them. They want to be loved. They want to be themselves out loud. Watching them try to get there across multiple lifetimes is the thing that kept me invested.

I loved the way the book bounces between past and present. Being a child of the 80s myself, I especially loved the time we spend in that decade. There’s a specific kind of pain and pride and panic that ran through the gay community in those years, and Nazemian writes it with so much care. It hit me harder than I was expecting.

There’s a lot to learn here, especially when it comes to gay history. This book is part love story, part time machine. It moves through decades that gay readers can sometimes feel weirdly disconnected from, even though they’re our own history. The world has changed so much, even in just my lifetime, that it’s easy to forget how much was sacrificed by the people who came before us. Books like this remind us how much we have to be thankful for.

Yes, this is a YA book, and I know some readers see YA and immediately discredit it. Don’t bounce on this one. The themes are mature and the emotional intelligence is real. I read plenty of adult literary fiction that doesn’t hit as hard as this book does, and I think YA gets dismissed too easily when authors like Nazemian are doing this kind of work in the space.

If you loved Addie LaRue and you’ve ever found yourself drawn to Dorian Gray, you’re going to find a lot to love here. If you’re a fan of historical queer fiction, or a child of the 80s like me, you’ll definitely want to give this one a go.