Pride High, Book 1

Red

By: Jay Bell

Narrated by: Talia Carver

Perfect for mature teens and nostalgic adults, this LGBTQ+ series celebrates authentic intimacy, realistic relationships, and the beautiful chaos of growing up queer. Rewind to the nineties and join a group of teenagers as they try to figure out who they are, and who they want to love. Meet your new friends:

Anthony Cullen: My life would be a lot easier if I wasn’t in the closet. And in love with my straight best friend. Do you think he’ll ever notice me?

Omar Jafari: I’m flunking out of most of my classes, but hey, a pretty girl talked to me today. So maybe I should stop secretly hooking up with a dude.

Silvia Diaz: Listen, my parents are undocumented, so I don’t have time to worry about boys. Or girls. Or which I like more.

Cameron Huxley: I’m ready to meet my soul mate. Whoever he is. When we find each other, we’re going to come out and show the world what true love looks like!

Mindy Beaumont: I feel like I’m invisible. I’ve never even kissed a boy. Ugh! Oh well. Back to my romance novels.

Ricky Nishikawa: I’m starting freshman year in a new town. If that wasn’t bad enough, I keep getting picked on by a bully. And he’s really really hot.

Pride High: Book 1 immerses you in a world where every secret holds explosive potential and each friendship has the chance to blossom into something extraordinary. High school has never been so gay before!

©2022 Jay Bell Books LLC (P)2024 Jay Bell Books LLC

Every bit Jay Bell - More Realistic World than ‘Something Like’ Series

Jay Bell always creates a vivid world full of characters who will tug at your heart strings. The ‘Something Like’ series is amazing; In this book, Jay Bell created a much more diverse cast of characters. This should alleviate the one limitation with the ‘Something Like’ series, which was that the majority of characters are gay. That always suspended the realism for me in a world that seemed so real with characters that’s I loved. I love this wider set of characters and should produce a world more representative of the real world. However, I must admit that the sexual aspect combined with some of the characters ages made me uncomfortable as an adult. That said, after some serious thought on if I should continue reading I found that those aspects did align with my own life experiences. Which when combined with the fact that he was not overly graphic kept me reading, but it was close, I almost stopped. Overall, I am very pleased with the world this book sets up and am looking forward to the older versions of these characters.

One of the best coming of age stories

I have ever come across. You can tell the author is a gay male. He captures all of the emotional turmoil so perfectly. I’ve also gone through what Ricki has and it hit so hard. Wonderful book great narration.

Love this author!

This started out a little slow form my taste and I almost quit the story but I realized that with such a large cast of characters the story would take more time to tell. By the last half of the book I was well hooked and can’t wait to see what happens next. I love the way he tells his stories and as someone who was a teenager in the 90’s I recognize the accuracy of the school life experienced here. I never had such supportive friends though…

Very Engaging.

An Excellent story. Well written well told. A definite must listen. I am staring book two immediately

Such a powerful story

This story feels so real and so powerful. Absolutely an amazing book. If you’re a fan of the Rainbow High series by Alex Sanchez then you’ll absolutely love this series as well.

Loved This!

This is another excellent Jay Bell story. Fans of the Something Like Series will enjoy this first of hopefully many more stories in this new series. Bell has a way of creating a universe of relatable and likable characters. I'm a huge fan of Jay Bell; his fans will love this. Talia Carver did a fantastic job bringing the characters to life.

A good story

Well written and a great story of fully developed characters. A good reflection on that bridge time when the doors were slowly opened for queer kids to be themselves

the subject of self hatm

I tried 8 times I just wish I could have had the support the boys in this story had.

Great read

Over all a great story line. It’s good to see how pure and innocent love should always be. Of course the gay life style is full of pleasureable moments, it’s not just for hetero and should be spoken about. Riki and his friends have a new understanding of things and people.

So relatable great story

This story was so relatable to me as a LGBTQ teen growing up on the 90’s. This could have easily been the story of my friends or myself! Great story!