Hot News is one of the first long-form stories of his that hasn't been released online (in whole) prior to its physical publication, & is the first long-form story he has written since Thomas in 2016. 

Thomas focused on a masked main character - written this way to promote the idea that it doesn't matter what someone looks like or what gender they are, a love story is a love story. This writing style was quite difficult, and with it also being a ghost story, it took quite some time to write to navigate all the paranormal rules in the storyline.

With Hot News, Christopher wanted to simply, flat-out make a story that was a gay romantic drama - no tiptoeing around the subject - just making an unapologetically happy, emotion-filled, gay love story. 

There is so much inspiration from Christopher's life in Hot News - right down to the title itself. The term "Hot News" was something his grandmother uses to refer to exciting events or happenings to chat about during their weekly phone conversations.

"Darla" was loosely named after a coworker-friend he had in the past, and Darla's personality pulls inspiration from another friend of his.

The main character "Ethan" was, again 'loosely' based off of Christopher himself (from his high school days). From the "unruly wavy blond hair" and skinny build, to the characters ability to overthink.

The idea of 'coming out' in high school can be such an uncomfortable thought for many. With it being senior year in Hot News, time is running out, and the main character must decide whether or not to act on their emotions. 

Exploring the complexities of taking a chance, Ethan navigates the many events that unfold - thrilling, devastating, hopeful, heartbreaking, romantic, happy, and everything in between. 

Hot News was written to be down-to-earth and realistic - and with realistic comes some 'spice.'

What do we mean by spice? Spice is referring to a variety of things in the story, but mostly, the amount of romance and some language. Profanity is used lightly in the storyline to align with strong emotional outbursts only, and is not used extensively throughout the story. Sexual themes are described in a romantic nature, mentioning the intimate acts without specifically describing the acts in vivid detail.

With the want for the story to be 'real' in feeling, 'spice' felt necessary to accurately depict the high school experience as it is a time when many already know 'bad words' (that can sometimes slip out in moments of heightened emotions), and when many begin to explore romance, and tackle questions about self identity, and sexuality.

For these reasons, we give the book a Spice Rating of 2/5