THE PIZZA CHRONICLES SERIES TOUR
and BOOK 5 NEW RELEASE
SERIES BLURB
The books in the Pizza Chronicles series follow the main character, RV, through his high school years, as he tries to answer his many questions about life, God, prayer, sexuality, being the son of immigrants, and staying loyal to his heritage while carving out his own life and relationships.
The stories should be read in order.
Book #1: Why Can’t Life Be Like Pizza?
Book #2: Why Can’t Freshman Summer Be Like Pizza?
Book #3: Why Can’t Relationships Be Like Pizza?
Book #4: Why Can’t Sophomore Summer Be Like Pizza?
Book #5: Why Can’t Dating Be Like Pizza?
Overall Heat Rating for the series: 1 flame
The Inspiration for The Pizza Chronicles
By Andy V. Roamer, author of Why Can’t Dating Be Like Pizza, Book 5 of The Pizza Chronicles
I’m often asked about the inspiration for The Pizza Chronicles. When I think about it, I can’t come up with one simple answer. I think there are several.
First of all, as far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to write. When I was a kid, I would get together with my cousin, who was my best friend at the time. We’d come up with stories and read them to each other. A lot of them were typical boy stuff. We’d be captured by pirates. We’d be fighting bad guys and robbers. We’d see a flying saucers in our back yards and might be kidnapped by aliens.
I’d create stories on my own, too. And it didn’t stop as I grew older. When I was in college, I fell in love with movies. I even wrote a screenplay for a well-known Hollywood actress and sent the script to her. She politely rejected the script but told me to keep on writing. I sent off stories and plays to contests also.
But I never seriously considered writing as a career, not back then anyway. Perhaps it was my upbringing. My parents were hard-working immigrants from Eastern Europe, and it was very important for me to study hard and then get a good professional job so I wouldn’t have to struggle like they did. I did study hard and moved to New York City after college. And I did get a full-time job. But at some level the need to write hadn’t disappeared. The job I took was in a book publishing company. As an assistant to a Publisher, I was thrilled to be around authors and writing. We published children’s books, and though it may not have been my first love, I still learned so much not only about writing and critiquing manuscripts, but about the publishing business as well. And as for the well-paying part, well, you can’t have everything.
I moved up through the publishing ranks over the years, spending most of my career as Managing Editor at different companies. I did still write off and on, entering contests and sending out queries but nothing much came of it. Other things were going in my life at the same time, most importantly the struggle to accept myself as gay and learning to enjoy the amazing gay life New York had to offer. Then HIV and AIDS started hitting my friends and the gay community. Staying alive and not giving in to despair became more important than anything else. I put my writing self on hold, as these concerns took over.
After many attempts and submissions (I’m talking years), I finally got my first contract! It was for an adult novel, Confessions of a Gay Curmudgeon. The publisher, Nine Star Press, was small and new, but I was thrilled. I had finally broken through.
There was something else inside me. The need to tell the story of a teenager of hardworking immigrant parents wrestling with his sexuality while coping the best he could with the ups and downs of daily life. Obviously some of it was based on my own experiences. But there was more than just sharing my life. I knew there were many coming out stories. But how many stories of kids of immigrant parents? Kids who not only were dealing with sexuality but also wrestling with the issues of growing up in an immigrant culture here in the U.S., trying to put all those pieces of one’s life together? Looking back, I certainly felt like I had learned a lot during those years. Sharing it all with readers became important. I needed to get it all out on paper (or more accurately the computer screen). And so The Pizza Chronicles was born.
Why Can’t Dating Be Like Pizza? is the fifth book in The Pizza Chronicles. What I’ve tried to do in the series is show what goes through the mind of the main character, RV, as he deals with issues I’ve described. In the first book he starts out by being shy and scared, and feeling guilty about all the feelings inside himself. Slowly, very slowly, through the other books his guilt drops away and at one point he even comes out to his family. And then he starts to date, dealing with all the ups and downs that happen when you’re dating someone. RV has grown so much and continues to grow.
I’ll end this by telling a little story I tell in various interviews. A friend of mine gave the first book, Why Can’t Life Be Like Pizza?, to friends of hers, grandparents of a boy who was wrestling with his sexuality. I didn’t know these people at all, but my friend told me they told her that after they read the book they understood their grandson more fully and felt closer to him. To know my book had this effect on total strangers, I felt on cloud 9. Maybe that’s why I write these books. Not only for gay teens from various backgrounds to feel a little less alone and get to know themselves a little better. But also for other people to get to know such teens. Isn’t that what writing comes down to? For all of us to get to know ourselves and others a little better?
BOOK 5 – NEW RELEASE
Book Title: Why Can’t Dating Be Like Pizza?
Author: Andy V. Roamer
Publisher: Nine Star Press
Length: 52 000 words
Release Date: August 20, 2022
Genre: Young Adult
Trope: Gay romance
Heat Rating: 2 flames
Themes: Dating, films, art, bullying, gay suicide, finding one’s passion, surviving break-ups
This story is a continuation of Book #1-4 with the same characters and does not end on a cliffhanger. It is best to read the books in order.
Series Buy Links
NineStar Press | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Sixteen year-old RV negotiates the ups and down of junior year of high school, filled with pressure, new romance, and unexpected discoveries.
Blurb
RV is now a junior in Book #5, Why Can’t Dating Be Like Pizza?. It’s the most important year of high school, as his guidance counselor makes clear. He pushes RV to improve his grades, get more active socially, and show colleges why they should accept him over other candidates. But RV has other things on his mind. He has met Luke, freshly arrived in Boston from Los Angeles. Luke shows him a whole new world of romance, movie making, and fun. RV’s friends and family pull him in other directions though. There’s the responsibility of earning money. His longtime friend Carole pulls him into politics, asking him to direct her campaign running for the student council. His old crush Bobby isn’t around much, and RV has to accept that he and Bobby are no longer an item, though he still has some feelings for him. But when Luke makes an unexpected announcement, RV really has to accept that dating has painful downs as well as joyful ups.
CHECK OUT THE FIRST FOUR BOOKS IN
THE PIZZA CHRONICLES SERIES
BOOK 1
Book Title: Why Can’t Life Be Like Pizza?
Author: Andy V. Roamer
Publisher: Nine Star Press
Cover Artist: Natasha Snow
Length: 55 100 words/ 208 pages
Release Date: March 30, 2020
Genre: YA Contemporary
Trope: Son of immigrants
Themes: Coming Out
It is a standalone story.
Buy Links
NineStar Press | Amazon US | Amazon UK
In Why Can’t Life Be Like Pizza? RV begins freshman year at demanding Boston Latin School, doing his best to keep up and fit in while wrestling with his immigrant heritage and his sexuality.
Blurb
Wrestling with his sexuality, along with a lot of other things, RV thinks all is okay when he starts going out with Carole. But things get more complicated when RV develops a crush on Bobby, a football player in his class, who admits he may have gay feelings, too. Bobby is African American and facing his own pressures. Luckily, RV develops a friendship with Mr. Aniso, his Latin teacher, who is gay and always there to talk to when the pressure becomes overwhelming.
BOOK 2
Book Title: Why Can’t Freshman Summer Be Like Pizza?
Author: Andy V. Roamer
Publisher: Nine Star Press
Cover Artist: Natasha Snow
Length: 50 200 words/196 pages
Release Date: June 1, 2020
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Trope: Summer Vacation
Themes: Obstacles to exploring sexuality and enjoying summer
This story is a continuation of Book #1 with the same characters
Buy Links
Nine Star Press | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Tagline In Why Can’t Freshman Summer Be Like Pizza? RV and Bobby have survived freshman year and are looking forward to spending a wonderful summer together. But life has other plans.
Blurb
RV and Bobby’s summer is not what they wish for. They hardly have time to spend with each other. Bobby is busy at football camp and working at a job his father has pressured him into taking. RV is busy with a summer job, too, and also has to help his parents pass their U.S. citizenship test. His friend Carole jumps at the chance to spend her summer in Paris. As always, Mr. Aniso, RV’s Latin teacher is there to talk to when RV gets too lonely. He’s also there when RV inadvertently spills one of Bobby’s secrets, and Bobby is so angry at him RV is afraid he’s ready to cut off the friendship.
BOOK 3
Book Title: Why Can’t Relationships Be Like Pizza?
Author: Andy V. Roamer
Publisher: Nine Star Press
Length: 58 000 words/ 272 pages
Release Date: March 15, 2021
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Trope: Forming relationships
Themes: Maintaining relationships through difficulties/helping friend through tragedy
This is a continuation of Book #2 of The Pizza Chronicles
Buy Links
Nine Star Press | Amazon US | Amazon UK
In Why Can’t Relationships Be Like Pizza?, Book #3, RV begins sophomore year in high school, though his relationships create more questions than answers.
Blurb
RV is trying to maintain his newfound friendship with Bobby, but it’s becoming harder and harder. Bobby seems a different, more distant, person. RV’s friend Carole is distracted with the ups and downs in her relationships with the French boyfriends she met during her summer in Paris. RV’s new friend Mark is focused on his family’s troubles. School is a mixed bag. But Mr. Aniso, RV’s former teacher and mentor, is there to lean on, especially when near tragedy strikes and RV needs Mr. Aniso’s counsel to stay strong and provide help where it’s needed most.
BOOK 4
Book Title: Why Can’t Sophomore Summer Be Like Pizza?
Author: Andy V. Roamer
Publisher: Nine Star Press
Length: 52 000 words
Release Date: August 23, 2021
Genre: Young Adult LGBT
Tropes: Summer vacation between freshman & sophomore years of high school
Themes: Teenage steps toward maturity: ups & downs of romance, driving lessons, coming out to family
It is a standalone story, with the same characters from books 1-3.
The books have frequent references to previous titles in the series, so better if they are read in order.
Buy Links
RV’s summer after sophomore year of high school isn’t all fun and games as he navigates a budding new relationship, struggles with driving lessons, copes with the ups and downs of his summer job in a movie theatre, and tries to be patient with his traditional family that doesn’t want to deal with his sexuality.
Blurb
It’s the summer after sophomore year and RV enjoys new adventures and faces new challenges having finished two years of high school. Since he loves movies, he’s happy to get a job as an usher at a movie multiplex, but learns the realities of dealing with job stresses and unruly customers. It’s time for him to start learning how to drive, and his father is eager to give him lessons. But he’s not the most patient of teachers and RV is not the most capable of drivers. Bobby is still around, but he’s doing the hard job of recovering from his injury so doesn’t have time for much else. RV tries to open himself up to a new relationship and is happy when he meets Matteo, who works at the multiplex also. It looks like the start of a budding romance – until it isn’t. And then there is RV’s family, loving but traditional, not ready or willing to discuss issues of sexuality. Luckily, as always, there is Mr. Aniso, RV’s freshmen-year teacher, who has become a friend and is always there to talk over anything that might be bothering RV. But he’s away for the summer, helping his partner’s family, so there’s only so much time and attention he can give RV.
Andy V. Roamer grew up in the Boston area and moved to New York City after college. He worked in book publishing for many years, starting out in the children’s and YA books division and then wearing many other hats. This is his first novel about RV, the teenage son of immigrants from Lithuania in Eastern Europe, as RV tries to negotiate his demanding high school, his budding sexuality, and new relationships. He has written an adult novel, Confessions of a Gay Curmudgeon, under the pen name Andy V. Ambrose. To relax, Andy loves to ride his bike, read, watch foreign and independent movies, and travel.
Social Media Links
