When Ben Loved Tim is here and about to rock your world. This full-length novel returns to Ben’s time in high school, when his lonely heart felt a spark of hope the night a boy in blue shoes jogged past him. But wait, haven’t I already told that story? Not like this. The new book focuses entirely on Ben and Tim’s first year together, back in high school, focusing on the young lovers with obsessive intensity and little else. When Ben Loves Tim is a tribute to their incredible love, and the first book in a new trilogy. So yes, there will be a When Ben Loved Jace, and a third book to wrap it all up. The story is so much more intimate and personal than before. One of the differences between it and Something Like Summer is the age of the characters. Ben and Tim’s relationship is so physical in those early days. They rely on it to communicate, since Tim can’t admit how he feels and Ben doesn’t want to scare him off. So the book begins in their senior year of high school, when they are both eighteen. That way I didn’t have to hold back.

And there’s so much MORE in general. The high school portion of Something Like Summer was around 50,000 words long. When Ben Loved Tim focuses on the same time period and is about 120,000 words in comparison. So it’s much more than rewriting prose to sound better, or including lots of hot bedroom scenes. This is the story I would have written over decade ago, had I known what I was doing. The characters and plots are more fully realized and nuanced. This is, in my opinion, the story perfected. When Ben Loved Tim is available in paperback or as an eBook. An audiobook will follow in the next couple of months with Kevin R Free returning to narrate. I hope you’re looking forward to reuniting with old friends!

Much love,

Jay Bell