Beloved Disciples is a haunting gay love story where grief becomes devotion, memory becomes myth, and a young man must choose between the ghost of his past and the truth of who he is. Asobsession dances on the edge of reality, a young man discovers the power of first love.

Simón fell in love the first night he stepped into the only gay club in his unnamed coastal hometown. Albi fell too, despite Simón’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, Simón is left wandering in memories that feel more alive than the present. Friends and family—his Tía 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.

Available from Bywater Books

Mario Elías is a multidisciplinary artist of Cuban and Syrian descent based in Chicago. His work spans fiction, nonfiction, photography, painting, and printmaking, often exploring themes of identity, memory, and cultural inheritance. His book Queering the Male Gaze reimagined masterpieces of the classical and modern canon through essays and self-portraiture, giving voice to the often-overlooked queer and female figures who shaped them. His visual work has been featured in Vogue, San Francisco Magazine, and Dazed, among others. His portrait collection, Perennial Beauty, was the inaugural show for Golden Gate University’s Social Impact Artist Series. He is the founder of The KindaSuper Project, a philanthropic initiative offering free photography and video services to underserved communities. The project has partnered with wildfire survivors, immigrant families, women-of-color-led small businesses, and wildlife rescue organizations.

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.