by 
A Different Shade of Blue
Rust Book 2
By Samantha Arthurs
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(LGBTQ) Seventeen-year-old Bryson Davis is finally ready to start putting the pieces of his life back together. Since the death of his older brother, Alec, two years prior, and the subsequent break down of his family life, he has struggled with who he is and what comes next. He sees his senior year of high school as a chance to finally get things right though; a chance to once again be the person he was before Alec, before Rust, and before the divorce.
Only it’s hard to be yourself when you’re harboring an immense secret. The type of secret that can turn your entire life upside down. And it only gets harder when a new boy at school named Aidan Driscoll is unexpectedly thrown into the works.
A Word from the Author
It’s been two years since Bryson Davis’ older brother, Alec, tragically committed suicide and left his family reeling. Especially Bryson, who has been struggling both with the loss of his brother and the normal trials and tribulations of growing up. Now a high school senior, he is determined to get past what happened in Montana and to figure out who he is and what he wants to do with his own life going forward.
The best year ever, however, is derailed by a new guy in school named Aidan Driscoll. He’s loud, problematic, and struggling with his own unpleasant home life that causes him to lash out at everyone Though Bryson is at first loathe to befriend him, he comes to realize that he and Aidan have a lot in common. Their new found camaraderie also pushes Bryson to come to terms with his biggest secret; the one thing he never even told Alec.
Bryson is learning how to grow, how to let go, and how to forgive. He is also learning that sometimes it’s okay to just be yourself, even if that means there are people in the world who will look down on you because of it. It may not be the year he envisioned, but it will definitely be a year to remember.
The second book in the Rust Series, A Different Shade of Blue, was never technically supposed to happen. I intended originally for the first book to be a one-off written during NaNoWriMo a few years ago. It wasn’t until the following fall, when planning again for NaNo, that I got the inspiration for book two. Bryson Davis had been, until that point, just a background character in the story of Alec and Ramona.
Bryson is markedly different from his brother, Alec, in myriad ways. He isn’t athletic but instead is a bit of a nerd, and he’s much more socially awkward. He’s a decidedly happy boy, if a bit troubled at times, and doesn’t suffer from the same demons that plagued the older brother he loved so much. At first it was difficult to imagine him as a fully formed character, but as I began to dig into the story deeper the more I saw him as his own wonderful creation.
The second book took it’s own path, and it turned out to be so much more than originally imagined. Following Bryson on his journey fo self-discovery, and seeing him evolve into who he was always meant to be, is certainly a special thing.
(Samantha Arthurs, September 2020)