Phinney Ridge resident Danielle Dreger has released her first young adult novel, “Secret Heart,” an LGBTQ teen romantic comedy centered around a Florida Gay Straight Alliance and its “Unprom.”
Avery Jennings is a punk-rock guitarist with a secret weakness for rom-coms and Taylor Swift. Her band, Detonate the Gazelle is ready to move to Austin after graduation, but Avery is having second thoughts. She’s fallen hard for Madison Shea, student council president with a douchebag boyfriend, after their orbits collide at Oak Bluff High’s inaugural Gay-Straight Alliance meeting. Even though it goes against her rules about crushing on straight girls, Avery relentlessly pursues Madison.
Their chemistry is too magnetic to deny and soon they are making out in car washes and school bathrooms and holding hands under tables. Avery wants to take their relationship public but Madison is afraid of her conservative family’s reaction and that it’ll ruin her chances as Prom Queen.
Their secret relationship is put to the ultimate test when student council vetoes a proposal for a gay-friendly prom and the club decides to throw a free Unprom the same night as Prom with Detonate the Gazelle as the headliner.
A portion of all book sales will go to the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network; however, all book sales during March will be donated to GLSEN and the ACLU. Dreger, Teen Services Coordinator for Sno-Isle Libraries, frequently speaks at Gay Straight Alliance clubs at area schools.
“Secret Heart” is available at Phinney Books, Secret Garden Books, University Book Store and Third Place Books, and from online retailers like Indie Bound and Amazon, as well as through the Seattle Public Library.
