celine 🩷💜💙 pre-order HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE

HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE is now available to request on netgalley!!

❤️‍🔥 sports romance
✨ enemies to idiots to (forbidden) lovers
❤️‍🔥 nuclear grade yearning
✨ grumpy x sunshine
❤️‍🔥 love letter to queer history and revolution
✨ soft love, big secrets, scorching spice

#booksky #queerbooksky #romancebooks

GRUDGE preorders are currently 25% off at b&n! preorders really help debut authors such as myself out by signalling interest and it will also guarantee you Hottest Person status!

🔗 www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hold-me-li...

#booksky

a million thanks to Steve Meditz and my editor Amanda Maurer over at berkley/prh, the iconic artist @sarahmaxwellart.bsky.social for bringing to life a cover that i’ve spent countless years dreaming of, and my badass agent @btaylorbooks.bsky.social for riding this crazy train!!

in a world that sometimes feels like it wants to write us out of its history books, GRUDGE is my love letter to the indomitable spirit of queer communities past, present, and future. it is also unabashedly weird and horny ngl.

The cover art of HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE, a novel by Celine Ong, where two male wrestlers (to the left is an Asian man in his 20s with black hair tied up in a man bun and a red fringe cascading down his face, dressed in a pair of black wrestling tights designed to look like flames; to the right is a white man with short blond hair with slight curls at the top, dressed in white tights and blue lines coming up the side) square up in the middle of a ring. They stare at each other with a mix of fierceness and affection, and have an arm on each other. They are illuminated by pinkish, purplish, and blueish stage lights above. In the background, a faceless crowd watches them.

a synopsis for HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE that reads: When a fierce rivalry between two professional wrestlers grows increasingly heated, neither man can fight the attraction burning between them, in this dazzling debut romance. From dramatic character gimmicks to death-defying stunts, everything in the world of professional wrestling is an act. Asher Ross's hatred for Caleb Knight, however, is not. When Asher gets drafted to Global Elite Wrestling’s main roster, playing the role of Caleb’s worst enemy—the face to his heel—should be easy. Stripping him of his World Championship title should be even easier. But as the two men trade barbs and blows across arenas, they’re each surprised to find their chemistry is so sizzling, it can’t just be for the cameras.

Through training sessions, rehearsals, and injuries, Caleb’s icy demeanor melts away, and Asher begins to see the real man behind the cruel persona GEW has molded Caleb into. An unlikely truce evolves into feelings neither want to deny, but the company won’t let them be seen as anything other than bitter rivals, both in and out of the ring.

As Asher and Caleb grapple with what they truly want in an industry with a history of denying queerness, their forbidden romance comes crashing down on them, and both men are forced to decide if their relationship is real enough to last, and just how much they’re willing to fight for it.

a trope map for HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE, including: freak4freak, himbo golden retriever x soggy wet cat, fuck you (nuclear grade yearning), hurt/comfort, a bi demon & a gay disaster walk into a bar, the inherent eroticism of choking out your enemy, found family, love letter to queer history & revolution, with text that announces “now available for pre-order”

WELCOME. SHE’S HERE.

thrilled to reveal the cover of my debut novel, a queer sports romance where a sizzling rivalry between two professional wrestlers grows increasingly heated ❤️‍🔥

HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE will be yours on 3/31/26 & is now available for preorder (🔗 in bio!)

#booksky #queerbooksky

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Hold Me Like a Grudge by Celine Ong Today on the site, I'm thrilled to be revealing the cover for Hold Me Like a Grudge by Celine Ong, a bi m/m sports romance releasing March 31, 2026 from Berkley! Here's the story: When a fierce rivalry between two professional wrestlers grows increasingly heated, neither man can fight the attraction burning between them, in this dazzling debut romance. From dramatic character gimmicks to death-defying stunts, everything in the world of professional wrestling is an act.

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Hold Me Like a Grudge by Celine Ong

Today on the site, I'm thrilled to be revealing the cover for Hold Me Like a Grudge by Celine Ong, a bi m/m sports romance releasing March 31, 2026 from Berkley! Here's the story: When a fierce rivalry between two professional wrestlers…

oh my god shoutout to your partner, and sincerest apologies (not really lmao oops) to you!!

hold me like a grudge by celine ong, featuring the tropes the following tropes: do you want to fight him or fuck him?, himbo golden retriever x soggy cat, fuck you (nuclear grade pining), the inherent eroticism of choking out your enemy, diversity win! no one is straight!, freak4freak, everyone is in horny jail, *jumps over problems* parkour, hurt/comfort, love letter to queer history & revolution

more tropes in hold me like a grudge by celine ong: cute first date ideas: hand-to-hand combat, i fucked my way into this mess & i’ll fuck my way out, human version of a headache, middle fingers up to capitalism, bisexuality strikes again, my beloathed <3, my mother sold me to one direction, erotic & religious, repressed emotions in a trenchcoat, emotionally-charged soup

hold me like a grudge as tumblr quotes and ao3 tags

tropes in HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE except it gets more unhinged as the author completely loses the plot. bon appétit 💋

💌 out spring 2026 with @berkleyromance.bsky.social !!

#booksky #queerbooksky

CONGRATS AND HELLO AGENT SIB!!!! 💓

WE NOT YOUR TYPICAL LOVE STORY_by C.R. Averett Word doc. Text on page reads: For a while, I thought being aromantic meant being alone and that was that. But it's not so straightforward—no pun intended.

It’s #AromanticAwarenessWeek and I just so happen to have an aromantic YA romcom out next year! It’s also got an ace MC (actually two), so if you like queerplatonic love stories and cringey puns, you can add it on Goodreads! www.goodreads.com/book/show/22...

#AroWeek #AspecAuthors #ASAW

he wishes he was even a sliver as cool as us🙂‍↕️

a bookstack (true love and other impossible odds, his boy next door s3, a collar for his brat s1 & 2, have you seen this girl, the eyes are the best part, mooncakes, we used to live here, incidents around the house, fence challengers: sweet sixteen, recognizing the stranger, we got the beat) on a black desk with a floral green table runner draped over it. next to it, a lego flower bouquet is arranged in a vase in the shape of a polar bear. three tarot cards rest at its base. “january wrap up” is overlaid on top

janaury cry tracker with 8 days colored in

cel, asian person in their 20s wearing a floral dress with a cowl neck, staring off into the distance with a tiny smile, overlaid with a tweet that says: "you think you're smarter than elon musk" no, i KNOW i'm smarter than elon musk. i'm also funnier and hotter. hope that helps

a laptop next to a tray of sandwiches and coffees at a cafe

new year new cry log, turned in edits for grudge, and uh. pissing on cybertrucks #booksky

author devastated to find out the scene they’ve just dreamt of in vivid detail doesn’t immediately appear on google docs and they have to now write it themselves

🗣️ piss on it

noah kahan playing against oliver stark in the celebrity NBA now this is the irl high school musical AU

ALERT ALERT IM GONNA READ THE WHOLE THING!!!

*inhales* the discomfort when forced to make eye contact and masking and hyperfixating and rewatching comfort media a hundred times for familiar reassurance and not understanding why humans act the way they do or how to interact with them murderbot is so autistic coded in this essay i—

#booksky

you dropped this king 👑

@ god me when

lunar new year truly brings out my two wolves: my self hatred vs my delusional god complex

are you a lawyer? are you a doctor? are you a finance bro? no auntie i'm being paid to write about bisexual rivals secretly kissing, fighting capitalism, and making queer history

jumping up and down screaming pointing that’s my agent!!! the best partner one could ever dream of 🥹

happy LOSER NEW YEAR i mean lunar new year!!🍊 can’t believe i get to watch my feral cat son fall in love with his anxious golden retriever fake boyfriend in real time perhaps life is worth living after all

#booksky #queerbooksky

ahh thank you!!!🥰

Hold Me Like a Grudge A queer sports romance about two rival professional wre…

casual lil link to add HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE on goodreads to catch this bisexual loser in action 🫶

www.goodreads.com/book/show/22...

#booksky #queerbooksky

patience is overrated i want this now. immediately.

authors of #booksky, explain your story badly:

local pro wrestler believes he’s just an ally and tries to no homo his way through the world’s most homoerotically charged fights with his rival but surely that doesn’t mean anything haha unless

lmao oh absolutely like would i bet money on it? not unless i’m willing to probably lose it all we’re vibing too close to the sun