The best way I can describe it is – a book discovery site that focuses on promoting currently active authors, their books, and books they recommend. I found it through a discussion thread on the Author’s Guild website.
Shepherd asked me to write five short book reviews – any book, any genre, older titles welcome. They only asked that the novels I chose were similar to BridgeKeeper, comps if you will. In exchange for publishing my reviews, they posted my book along side the others with buttons to purchase on Amazon or Bookshop.org. My recommendation page includes links to my website and the BK book trailer. Pretty sweet.
These are the five novels I reviewed – good comps for BridgeKeeper.
It’s an interesting way to shop for books. You can search my name, L.S.Moore, or BridgeKeeper, or any of the five books I recommended. Of course, you can search more generally for any title, author, genre or age group. The books aren’t ranked or limited to new titles, or best sellers. They’re presented with reviews by authors who love them. Each authors page has a catchy title that defines their theme. It was a relief to be able to include older books in my list. New release comps for BK are hard to find!
The founder’s name is Ben Fox. He describes himself as a “serial entrepreneur who loves to read.” Here’s a podcast interview with Ben on Writerscast – the voice of writing with David Wilk. Ben says that what he’s trying to do is re-create, online, the experience of wandering through your favorite book store. You won’t find New York Times or Kirkus reviews – just short, personal thoughts from authors about books they love.
Check out Shepherd and let me know what you think.
Happy 2024!! My 2023 list of Young Adult titles with male main characters grew to 89! Wooo-hoo!! It only included stories told by characters who self-identified as male (no sharing the POV limelight with a female character), any genre within Young Adult, and any publishing date. And I stuck with traditionally published titles, most available at your public library. I’ll put the list at the bottom of the post.
What comes next is a re-posting of my original rantpassionate essay.
Now, imagine me standing on a soapbox in the town square… Maybe with a megaphone.
I weep at the scarcity of Young Adult novels written from male characters’ points of view!
Dead boy reading
If you aren’t a teen aged boy, the parent of one, or maybe a savvy librarian, you probably haven’t noticed how underrepresented boys are in the teen section. Next time you peruse library or bookstore shelves, pay attention!
Don’t think teen boys read? Poppycock! My sons are avid readers. They had plenty of picture books and middle grade novels to choose from, but they burned through the YA section and had to move on to adult fiction long before I was comfortable with them doing so.
And I’m aware that YA is the ONLY category where women and girls dominate the shelves. But do we have to give girls the attention they deserve by under-serving boys?
Don’t get me wrong, most boys enjoy a good adventure told from a smart, strong female point of view, but a guy likes to see himself as the star occasionally too. Right guys?
And a lot of teen girls enjoy a boy’s perspective now and then. Right girls?
But try finding a boy on the cover in the Young Adult section at the library or your local bookstore. Pink hearts, warrior princesses, and frilly fonts prevail.
Thank goodness there’s no sell-by date on a good book! There are plenty of great novels with boy protagonists if you go back through the decades.
So my mission, and yours if you choose to accept it, is to scour YA collections, old and new, and find every book out there with a male, teen protagonist so we can compile a handy list.
Start right now! Living boys, what are you reading?
Here’s my list for 2023!
It’s not comprehensive – oh no, no, no. You’ll look it over and say, “Hey, she missed this, this and this!” PLEASE tell me about them in a reply below. Unfortunately, searching – YA novels with male main characters yielded some wildly inappropriate suggestions. Goodreads had a couple of decent lists. Mainly, it took a lot of slogging through reviews and blogs, looking at covers, trying to guess whether a boy or girl told the story. I’m pretty happy that the list got as long as it did!
Also, I didn’t read ALL of these. This isn’t a list of books I recommend, simply books that fit this narrow category.
Library friends, parents of boys, teachers and other interested readers, feel free to copy this list and add to it. It could be the only one of its kind in the whole universe!
You guys… I was not expecting this to be grab-me-by-the-collar-and-refuse-to-let-me-go AMAZING. This was one of those cases where an unknown author reached out to me and offered me a book for review, which I say “no” to 99% of the time. I did some research before accepting, but I still wasn’t expecting to be blown away.
I. Am. Blown. Away.
The hook that got me here was an author writing YA Fantasy with male protagonists and a story revolving around brotherhood. I want to see more of that (done well and without toxic undertones) for my boys, so I read this with guarded hope and it far surpassed my expectations.
Yes, we have brother MCs, yes they share an incredibly close bond, yes there’s action and fighting scenes, but ALSO we have sensitive navigation of masculinity and two very non-toxic protagonists who are using new powers they don’t yet understand to bring an abusive man to justice. There’s also ghosts, cemeteries, complex family dynamics, and hints of a much deeper supernatural world to come.
This book left a door definitively open for more to come, and I am telling you, I WILL BE WAITING ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT! This was a bit more thriller/mystery (some intense scenes had me skimming ahead to make sure everyone was going to be okay) than I usually pick up, but I think that’s exactly what will make my reluctant reader love this when he’s a bit older. I LOVED these characters and the world @lsmooreya is building for them. Their voices are so well-developed and authentic— I could see my boys in these brothers, but more to the point, they became real to me and I was completely invested in their journey. Seriously, if they made a tv show out of this I would not be surprised.
TWs in the comments, but seriously, please consider this a rave review. I’m stunned! This was stunning.”
I had a great time in the Young Adult room rubbing elbows with fellow local authors and fans! The lovely staff at Mid Continent Public Library made us all feel like NYT best-selling authors. We had a nice crowd of book-lovers, and the afternoon flew by. Many happy teens will have ghost stories under their trees on Christmas morning!
L.S. Moore 
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