"With a bonus story"--Cover. Includes a readers group guide with discussion questions and a conversation with the author.
Contents:
Vincent The Great Barrier Reef is dying but so are we -- Unknown legend -- Low, small -- A tennis court -- Tim Riggins would've smoked -- Surreptitious, canary, chamomile -- Winona forever -- Girlheart cake with glitter frosting -- Fast as you -- Chateau Marmont, champagne, Chanel -- Bearish -- All that smoke howling blue -- Pink bubblegum and flowers -- Knock out the heart lights so we can glow -- Get rowdy -- Re: little doves -- Out of the strong, something sweet -- The lengths -- Small and high up -- Small are dark, some are light, summer melts -- Bright -- Dark and sweaty and dirty -- Home safe -- Teenage dreams time machine -- Rope burns -- Get Faye & Birdie -- The Darl Inn -- You should love the right things -- And down we go! -- Crepuscular -- Stay and stay and stay -- Two cherries under a lavender moon -- When it gets warm -- Boy smoke -- Dandelion light -- California, keep us -- Cloud report -- Downright -- You got me -- Eine kleine nachmusik -- A girl has her secrets -- Vincent
Summary:
"From Kentucky to the California desert, these forty-two short stories -- ranging from the 80's and 90's to present day -- expose the hearts of girls and women in moments of obsessive desire and fantasy, wildness and bad behavior, brokenness and fearlessness, and more. On a hot July night, teenage girls sneak out of the house to meet their boyfriends by the train tracks. Members of a cult form an unsettling chorus as they proclaim their adoration for the same man. A woman luxuriates in a fantasy getaway to escape her past. A love story begins over cabbages in a grocery store, and a laundress's life is consumed by her obsession with a baseball star. After the death of a sister, two high school friends kiss all night and binge-watch Winona Ryder movies. Leesa Cross-Smith's sensuous stories -- some long, some gone in a flash, some told over text and emails -- drench readers in nostalgia for summer nights and sultry days. They recall the intense friendships of teenage girls and the innate bonds between mothers, the first heady rush of desire, and the pure exhilaration of womanhood, all while holding up the wild souls of women so they can catch the light"--FantasticFiction.com.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.