Some books start as whispers. Others, as screams. A Queer Kind of Hallelujah was both—a cry from a part of me that had long been silenced, and a quiet anthem for anyone who’s ever been told that their truth made them unholy.
Set in a small Texas town where gossip is gospel and boys who love boys are burned at the stake of community shame, this book is my reckoning with the world I came from—and the version of myself that barely survived it.
What It’s About
At its core, A Queer Kind of Hallelujah is a coming-of-age story wrapped in the contradictions of faith and identity. It follows Ezra Callahan, a preacher’s son who falls in love with Jesse, the wrong boy in the eyes of his church, his family, and nearly everyone around him. As their secret relationship begins to unravel, so too does the fragile peace Ezra has kept with God, himself, and the town that raised him.
But this isn’t just a story about queer love in a hostile place. It’s about betrayal. About what happens when the people who were supposed to protect you weaponize belief. It’s about the brutal cost of survival—and the strength it takes to crawl toward healing anyway.
“In this town, your sins get passed down like family recipes.”
— A Queer Kind of Hallelujah
Why It Mattered to Write This
This book is fiction. But the feelings aren’t.
I know what it’s like to sit in a pew, terrified your body will betray you. I know the sharp, cutting silence that comes after you finally say it—I’m not who you think I am. And I know the quiet, complicated love queer kids often have for the places that broke them. This book is all of that.
It’s for the ones who were told they were too much and not enough at the same time.
It’s for the ones who still flinch at the word “hallelujah.”
It’s for the boys who looked at each other too long in locker rooms and the girls who whispered their secrets into church stall walls.
It’s for the ones who left. And the ones who couldn’t.
“God was never the one who hated me. It was always people who spoke too loudly in His name.”
— A Queer Kind of Hallelujah
A Book for the Wounded and the Wanting
I wrote this story for closure I never got. For the conversations I still replay in my head. For the boy I once was—and the man who now knows he didn’t deserve the shame he carried like a second skin.
But I also wrote it for joy. Queer joy. Joy that exists not in spite of pain, but through it. This book doesn’t end with everything tied up neatly in a bow. It ends with something more honest: the messy, miraculous act of becoming.
“Maybe salvation isn’t about being saved. Maybe it’s about being seen—and still being loved anyway.”
— A Queer Kind of Hallelujah
Final Thoughts
I don’t believe in clean answers anymore. But I believe in story. In witness. In the radical act of telling the truth, even when your voice shakes.
A Queer Kind of Hallelujah isn’t just a book. It’s a reclamation. Of voice. Of faith. Of self.
And if it meets someone else where they’re hurting, then that’s the real miracle.