Love Will Ruin Us, Still is the debut novel by Eric Saint James.

Love Will Ruin Us, Still is set in eastern North Carolina, where Julian Munroe returns home after hearing the news of his father's passing. Coming back means more than attending a funeral. It means facing the reason he left in the first place-the whispers, the wounds, and the memories that never stopped following him, no matter how far he ran.

Back in the town he once called home, Julian is forced to confront old grief, buried truths, and the version of himself that was shaped by shame and survival. The streets still remember. So do the people. And while Julian must reckon with the demons waiting for him there, one of them is almost angelic in the way he lingers: beautiful, familiar, and impossible to forget.

DeShawn has always been woven into Julian's history, into the tender and painful parts of him alike. What once lived quietly between them now rises again, refusing to stay buried beneath time, distance, and regret. As Julian grieves his father and uncovers the secrets death has left behind, he must decide whether returning home will ruin him all over again, or finally give him a chance to heal.

Love Will Ruin Us, Still is a Southern story of longing, memory, grief, and Black love. It is about what it means to return to the place that hurt you, to stand in the wreckage of rumor and loss, and to discover that love, no matter how dangerous, may still be the only thing strong enough to put a broken heart back together.