Jilted

In this endearing story of modern love, two upended relationships lead to one happy couple. When Matthew drags his fiancé, Carter, to Link and Jamie’s New Orleans wedding and interrupts it to declare his love for Jamie, Carter and Link are left in the dust. Commiseration leads to a night of debauchery, and the two decide to spend Link’s honeymoon together; after all, everything is already paid for. Despite Carter’s claim that “you have to take your feelings, gather them up, and then crush them,” he falls hard for artist Link, but when he wakes up on the last day, Link is already gone. Carter is loath to return home to his overbearing sister and his old life as an architect in Aurora, Ill. When that life proves as depressing as he expected, Carter makes an impulsive decision: move to New Orleans, buy an old house, and fix it up like he’s always dreamed. He doesn’t realize that Link lives in New Orleans, too. Link’s defiant rejection of binaries and labels (one of their T-shirts reads “QUEER AS IN FUCK U”) is both real and refreshing. Carter’s self-flagellation and indecisiveness are more frustrating. Though the story is sometimes plot-heavy and drawn out, Carter and Link’s awkward flirtations are sweet and keep the pages turning to the overly dramatic but happy ending. (Nov.)