Lio Min

Beating Heart Baby

From the acclaimed author of Beating Heart Baby, an immersive novel following three estranged high schoolers who are pulled into a video game to pursue the disappearance of their friend

Three years ago, Elle (the “E” in the self-proclaimed L.O.V.E. Club) disappeared from Calendula, an affluent Chinese American suburb in inland California. Soon afterward, Liberty and Vera (“L” and “V”) moved away, leaving O alone with her grief, abandonment, and confusion. . . until Liberty and Vera return for their senior year of high school.

Though the L.O.V.E. Club’s three remaining members once bonded as outcasts and gamers, they can’t pick up the pieces of their friendship. But the girls are drawn back to their old clubhouse, where they discover, loaded for them to play, a new game created by none other than the missing Elle.

One click, and Liberty, Vera, and O are ported into Morning Glory, an ever-evolving botanical fantasy coded with their lived experiences, complicated history, and repressed insecurities. Unbeknownst to the others, O can’t remember the events surrounding Elle’s disappearance―but within the game, Elle has sent O a cryptic hint about Morning Glory’s real nature.

While Liberty and Vera defeat increasingly sinister bosses, O grapples with the secret knowledge that her deepest wish, to reunite with Elle, might just come true. But as the girls progress through Morning Glory, O begins to wonder how well she actually knew any of her former best friends and if she’s ready to confront the hard truths―and dangerous revelations―about Elle in her returning memories.

The L.O.V.E. Club

A tender best friends to enemies to lovers story with AAPI leads, celebrating first love, second chances, indie rock, and transitions of all kinds Santi has only had his heart broken one time, and it was all his fault. When he accidentally leaked his internet best friend Memo’s song, and it became an overnight hit, Memo disappeared—leaving their song’s cult fame, and Santi, behind. Three years later, Santi arrives in Los Angeles with a mission: get over the ghost of Memo. Thankfully, his new school and its wildly-talented Sunshower marching band welcome him with open arms. All except for his section leader, the prickly, proud, musical prodigy Suwa. After a disastrous first encounter, Suwa makes Santi’s life a living hell. But when Santi realizes Suwa is trans, then Suwa realizes Santi takes his identity in stride, both boys begin to let their guards down. Santi learns Suwa's surliness masks a painful, still-raw history of his own, and as they open up to each other, their friendship quickly takes on the red-hot blush of a mutual crush. Just as Santi is feeling settled in this new life, with a growing found family and a head-over-heels relationship with Suwa, he begins to put together the pieces of an impossible truth—that Memo and Suwa might just be one and the same. But their fragile fresh start threatens to rip apart at the seams again when Suwa is offered the chance to step into the spotlight he’s owed, but has always denied himself. Now, as each of them faces the future, Santi and Suwa must finally reckon with their dreams, their pasts, and the boy who always seems to appear right at the wrong time.

Lio Min’s Beating Heart Baby is an “achingly romantic” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) love letter to internet friendships, anime, and indie rock When artistic and sensitive Santi arrives at his new high school, everyone in the wildly talented marching band welcomes him with open arms. Everyone except for the prickly, proud musical prodigy Suwa, who doesn’t think Santi has what it takes to be in the band. But Santi and Suwa share painful pasts, and when they open up to each other, a tentative friendship begins. And soon, that friendship turns into something more. . . . Will their fresh start rip at the seams as Suwa seeks out a solo spotlight, and both boys come to terms with what it'll take, and what they'll have to let go, to realize their dreams?

Lio Min

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