For Vanessa, a low-income housing complex in the middle of the desert in El Mirage, Arizona, represents all that is wrong with her life. Her neighbors get it on all night long, she sees an abusive husband kill his wife, and then himself, and her own ex-husband keeps showing up and getting into her pants.The one bright spot in Vanessa's life is her daughter, Kennedy, and Kennedy's love for the piano. She is practicing to audition for an esteemed music academy that Vanessa can in no w...

A Southern coming-of-age. . ..Ford's Shreveport is an unforgiving place—swampy, seductive and judgmental—that's reflected in her blunt but intoxicating prose. —Publishers WeeklyEleven-year-old Blaze James and her twin sister, Aerial, know two things beyond a doubt. They're two of the prettiest girls in Shreveport, Louisiana, and they'll always be there for each other. Then one night, a gas explosion leaves their father dead and Aerial severely burned, changing their lives ...

Dear Jesus,Gerry didn't work out because Gerry didn't work. And after spending one night in complete darkness because "pretty didn't pay the light bill," Gerry and I broke up and are no longer speaking.Marshall wasn't a viable suitor because when he finally revealed himself to me, I found out that his breasts were larger than mine because he used to be a she. Marshall and I are no longer speaking.Keith could have been the one. I met him a...

She should have been able to trust him...."Night sweats were my dance, especially in the Huston home. They were a continuation of the visions I had experienced in Dorchester, only here, they were much more violent."Set in a wealthy community in northern Michigan, Rising tells the story of nine-year-old Symone, who is adopted by the Hustons--"a shameless family with a house at the top of the hill"--after her mother dies of a drug overdose. And though Symone is all too...

Contemporaries like Mary Monroe and Kimberla Lawson Roby hail Darnella Ford as a provocative and insightful author who infuses her prose with poetic sensibilities. When a horrible accident kills Blaze James' father and scars her twin sister aerial, Blaze is left in the care of exotic Felicity Hardaway. Felicity opens new vistas for Blaze. And as their relationship grows more intense, Blaze faces intolerance in their Shreveport, Louisiana, home and an unexpected betrayal.