Starting an enemies-to-lovers romance novel the day after a difficult breakup probably wasn’t my best idea, but it did lead me to Cursed Boys and Broken Hearts, my favorite book of 2024 (so far). Reading it was oddly therapeutic, something Adam Sass, also the author of Surrender Your Sons, The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers, and Your Lonely Nights Are Over, likely intended, given that it’s the final volume in a collection of books about queer loneliness. Half expertly crafted YA romance and half how-to-get-over-your-ex tutorial, Cursed Boys and Broken Hearts is a perfect beach read. 

Grant Rossi is not having a good summer. His Insta-perfect ex, Micah Summers, found his happily-ever-after with someone else and left Grant in the dust — depressed and unable to focus on his art-school portfolio. He needs a change, and where better to find it than on an escape to the family winery, Vero Roseto? It’s not like the Wishing Rose he once told his secrets to has cursed him with a life of heartbreak or anything, right? 

Right?

Grant arrives and quickly falls into old habits, eating kid-favorite foods with his aunt in the kitchen he grew up in and retiring to the basement when he needs alone time. But all is not well at Vero Roseto; the place is in trouble, and the family needs Grant’s help to ensure the winery’s success at the end-of-summer rose festival. Grant’s aunt — the reigning Mama Bianchi and family matriarch — has put together a crack team to salvage the once-great property and start turning a profit again. The only snag? It includes Grant’s childhood bestie and first crush, Ben. 

Cursed Boys and Broken Hearts is a certified stunner from this point on. It has everything: fairytale elements (including the aforementioned wish-granting rose), Oh, no, there’s only one more bed conundrums, exes for days, helpful elders, and, yes, magic spells. Sass deftly hits every beat and more, weaving in Grant’s incredibly self-aware mental-health journey and personal growth. He’s sure of himself even though he suspects he’s been hexed, reminding readers (like this one) going through a breakup that they’re “more than just an obstacle on the way to someone else’s happy ending.”

When Ben and Grant dispose of dangerous fireworks stockpiled in the basement of the winery, Grant reflects that “it feels good to get rid of things that are no longer serving us.” And later, when he’s pontificating on why he hesitates to let Ben back into his life, he sharply explains, “What they don’t understand is that my baggage protects me. It isn’t baggage, it’s a boundary.”  

Did he create some of that baggage himself? Of course. But he’s self-aware enough to protect himself and navigates the world with a caution that will be familiar to anyone who has come out. He’s cursed, after all, so when he gets scared, he pushes people away for his own safety.

Okay, fine, Mama Bianchi tells him in a dream, “If you say there’s a curse, break it yourself.” 

This messaging around the queer experience is central to — and unpacked throughout — the book, and it’s a reminder of why Sass is so successful: He writes charming books that suck you in, only to teach you hard lessons about queer existence and the anxiety that comes from living outside heterosexuality. When he finally reveals what Grant wished for on that mystical rose all those years ago, the truth is gut-wrenching and will resonate with queer readers and allies alike. (As will a subplot in which Grant is hell-bent on protecting his probably-gay nephew from experiencing the kind of torment he once endured.)

Fortunately, the author is not a sadist. This means that Grant and Vero Roseto will ultimately get the happy endings they deserve. At its core, Cursed Boys and Broken Hearts is a story about mythmaking and foundation-building for future generations, which are central to Sass’ writing. First and foremost, he writes the authentic, compassionate stories he needed and continues to need as a queer man. If there’s a real curse, it’s homophobia, and Adam Sass is doing his part to break it.

Nick Havey is director of Institutional Research at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, a thriller and mystery writer, and a lover of all fiction. His work has appeared in the Compulsive Reader, Lambda Literary, and a number of peer-reviewed journals.

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