The Red Rose

“You don’t have to be the version of yourself people expect. You can just… be.”

Elliot Harper has been a “good boy” his whole life—church on Sundays, a future already mapped out, and rules he never asked for.

Then he leaves home for college… and the question he’s been dodging hits hard: what if he wants something he was raised to fear?

A tense night with the Christian student group cracks his world open. A new door appears: the campus LGBTQ+ center. And when Elliot downloads a dating app “just to look,” he meets Marcus—older, steady, and patient enough to let Elliot set the pace.

But Elliot’s old life doesn’t vanish just because he’s eighteen now. His mother’s expectations, his faith, and the shame he learned by heart all come with him.

THE RED ROSE: BOOK ONE is a coming-of-age MM college romance about religious guilt, gay awakening, and the courage it takes to choose your first love—slowly, honestly, and for real.