Sixteen-year-old Jake McCullough and his buddies Rider, Brody, Carlton, and Tim feel like the invisible boys of Ben Raphael
Academy, an exclusive coed prep school. Teachers and fellow students look
through them, not at them. Brody decides they need “mystique” to garner
attention and admiration, especially from girls. “Nobody has more mystique than
a desirable virgin,” he declares. Thus is born Ben Raphael’s All-star Virgin
Order or BRAVO.
The five friends polish their physical appearances. Brody
launches a subtle but canny publicity campaign. Soon, the formerly invisible
boys are indeed being noticed. The pinnacle of their acceptance seems to
come in the form of invitations to the Valentine’s Day dance.
But the young men’s motives are more complex than
they appear to be. For different reasons and to different degrees, all the
BRAVO members are emotionally fragile. Two have already taken wrong turns in
their quest for affirmation and succumbed to a seductive female teacher. Jake
and Rider, roommates and best friends, are attracted to each other but balk at
declaring their feelings; they fear the stigma of being gay.
Virginity, it turns
out, comes in different guises.
An unspeakable tragedy
pushes the BRAVO boys, and Jake and Rider in particular, across the threshold from
innocence into experience and makes them realize what’s truly important in
life.
~ Coming September 25 from Harmony Ink ~
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