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  • Published: 28 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9781641291712
  • Imprint: Soho Teen
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $39.99

Summer in the City of Roses




Inspired by the Greek myth of Iphigenia and the Grimm fairy tale "Brother and Sister," Michelle Ruiz Keil's second novel follows two siblings torn apart and struggling to find each other in early '90s Portland.
 
All her life, seventeen-year-old Iph has protected her sensitive younger brother, Orr. But this summer, with their mother gone at an artist residency, their father decides it’s time for fifteen-year-old Orr to toughen up at a wilderness boot camp. When their father brings Iph to a work gala in downtown Portland and breaks the news, Orr has already been sent away against his will. Furious at her father’s betrayal, Iph storms off and gets lost in the maze of Old Town. Enter George, a queer Robin Hood who swoops in on a bicycle, bow and arrow at the ready, offering Iph a place to hide out while she tracks down Orr.

Orr, in the meantime, has escaped the camp and fallen in with The Furies, an all-girl punk band, and moves into the coat closet of their ramshackle pink house. In their first summer apart, Iph and Orr must learn to navigate their respective new spaces of music, romance, and sex-work activism—and find each other before a fantastical transformation fractures their family forever.

Told through a lens of magical realism and steeped in myth, Summer in the City of Roses is a dazzling tale about the pain and beauty of growing up.

  • Published: 28 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9781641291712
  • Imprint: Soho Teen
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $39.99

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Praise for Summer in the City of Roses

Praise for All of Us with Wings   “Keil’s ambitious debut is jam-packed with twists and depth and froth and function . . . [This is] a book about embracing everything—people, lifestyles, beliefs, experiences—and, in so doing, finding your own distinct power.” The New York Times Book Review “Michelle Ruiz Keil crafts a fantastical ode to the Golden City’s postpunk era.” —Entertainment Weekly  “A spellbinding tale about finding magic in the mundane and hope in the unknown. Filled with dizzying danger and electrifying music, All of Us with Wings left me breathless.” —Ruth Ozeki, Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning author of A Tale for the Time Being “Keil is a new voice to keep an eye on.”  —Zoraida Córdova, author of Labyrinth Lost   “Michelle Ruiz Keil’s strange but original premise gives fresh perspective to the ways pain and rage can manifest themselves as toxic elements that threaten a person’s well-being and endanger those around them.” —NBC News