Little Boy Lost is the story of Brian McAllister, the boy next door.
Brian goes to school, does his homework, and helps his foster parents around the house. Brian also has a secret: he is in love with his best friend, Jamie. But in Crayford, Alabama, being in love with another boy is the worst kind of sin.
Brian and Jamie will discover just how deep their emotional bond runs, and at what cost. What will they do if their secret is discovered? From fumbling through their first sexual experiences to hiding all aspects of their relationship from everyone in their lives, Brian and Jamie battle for the one thing that is truly theirs—love.
Review
Enlightened by J.P. Barnaby is an exceptionally well written gay love story. I really love this book. Though the two main characters are on the brink of young adulthood at sixteen and seventeen, one never regards them as twinks or purely sexual objects. That’s because the author does a very good job of not exploiting them. She respects them too much. In fact this book might well be suited for a teen audience - but don’t think this is a book solely for teens. The beauty of this book is that it brings to the fore the still prevalent issues that prevent many a gay teen from being able to come out freely and confidently. This book is indeed relevant for the times in which we live. Many a gay man - no matter what his age - will see himself in this story. The thoughts and feelings of the young storyteller Brian McCallister are those which all of us who are gay can identify with. In fact I can’t recall an instance where the dilemma of coming out has been articulated quite so well, especially within the context of first love.
Young Brian McCallister is on the verge of turning seventeen. Brian is a foster teen with loving foster parents that any child would want to have. Brian introduces us to Jamie who is seventeen and the son of fundamentalist Christians who see homosexuality as sinful. What happens when these two teens who have been best friends for years reach a point in their young lives when they fall in love with each other? The fact that neither of these boys is out complicates matters. The fact that they live in small town Alabama really complicates them. Can their love survive in this socially conservative environment? At what lengths will two presumably straight boys go to, to hide themselves from an unfeeling bigoted world that would put their love in jeopardy?
This book swoops and surges with the youthful exuberance and innocent urgency of first love. J.P. Barnaby’s rendering of a boy of sixteen+ is pitch-perfect. The delicacy and nuance with which Brian and Jamie’s sexual awakening is conveyed makes their relationship astonishingly tender and real. The sex scenes themselves gradually unfold and realistically build in erotic intensity until they are scorchingly hot. But the sex always serves to deepen the extraordinarily strong bonds of love that serve as the foundation of this story. The emotional undercurrent of these scenes takes the sex beyond the purely physical and makes it almost miraculous. This book exemplifies the very best of erotic gay fiction. In fact, it is great gay fiction period.
