Right Beside You

Right Beside You"Deeply moving and thoroughly engrossing." Kirkus, starred review In this fresh, speculative blend of queer romance and coming of age, Eddie meets Theo in present day New York and Francis in a New York of the past torn between eras and his heart, he must make a decision that will change his life forever. High school has just ended and Eddie is at a loss for what's next. He had a falling out with his best friend, and he never really related to the rest

"Deeply moving and thoroughly engrossing." --Kirkus, starred review

In this fresh, speculative blend of queer romance and coming-of-age, Eddie meets Theo in present-day New York and Francis in a New York of the past... torn between eras and his heart, he must make a decision that will change his life forever.

High school has just ended and Eddie is at a loss for what's next. He had a falling out with his best friend, and he never really related to the rest of his peers in the sleepy Colorado town he calls home. The future is bleak.

Until his ancient and eccentric great aunt Cookie asks him to care for her in New York City as she recuperates from an illness. Eddie leaps at the opportunity. Soon after he arrives at her tiny Greenwich Village apartment, homebound Cookie asks Eddie to use her vintage polaroid camera to snap pictures of her favorite places she can no longer visit. But something's unusual about this camera. When he takes a photo, he's launched back in time to an entirely different New York of the early 20th century.

As Eddie explores the underground queer life of the 1930s, he discovers new undercurrents of his own identity. Not to mention a dangerously handsome boy in scuffed boots and tattered stovepipe trousers who keeps popping up in his visions of the past.

But when Eddie begins to develop a crush on the mercurial Francis, a cute baker named Theo enters the picture--and he's in the present. Caught between timelines and feelings, Eddie must make a decision about what he's willing to chase: his romantic fantasies of the past or a reality that might just be what he's wanted all along.

Author: Tucker Shaw
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Published: 04/29/2025
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 1.40d
ISBN: 9781250327109
Audience: Young Adult


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2025
Booklist 04/01/2025 pg. 108
School Library Journal 03/28/2025 pg. 1

About the Author
Tucker Shaw is a writer and editor who first found his family in New York City's East Village in 1991 when he was twenty-three. Over the decades he's worked in magazines, newspapers, and advertising. When You Call My Name is his first novel for Henry Holt Books for Young Readers.