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When twenty-one-year-old builder Joe Wright meets Leo, he falls in love hard, and seemingly for ever. Mature, philosophical and intensely handsome, Leo teaches Joe an appreciation of music and literature, and, most importantly, a passion for the beautiful old buildings that are disappearing from Auckland’s central city. But when Leo suddenly vanishes from his life, then drifts back again years later, Joe – now a powerful developer of heritage architecture – is unable to move on from this first affair. As the years pass, and Leo stays just out of reach, can Joe open his eyes to new possibilities?

An intense love story and a love song to a city’s vanishing past, Shelter depicts the myriad complexities of male relationships, the possibilities offered by chance encounters and the exquisite beauty of friendship – and a home – found in unexpected places.

What People Are Saying

Picking up where Call Me by Your Name left off, Shelter explores the second act of a tortured, tender, true romance. It’s a moving elegy to lost love - and Douglas deserves a prize for managing to make me cry over architecture.

— Harry McNaughton

Shelter is a gentle yet urgent story of enduring love, new love, platonic love and the love we find within ourselves. Sensual and tender, Shelter is a passionate love letter to the cities that lure us in. I found myself easily lostin the yearning love I didnt’t expect to find on the streets of Auckland.

— Emily Writes

The master chronicler of our domestic lives turns his exacting eye to fiction.

— Jeremy Hansen

If you want a heart-tugging queer New Zealand novel to read at the beach, this is the one.

— Andrew Paul Wood

Shelter is great entertainment and as much a love letter to a city as it is the story of Leo and Joe; the wonder is that it succeeds on both counts.

— Greg Fleming