Three years after his last major adult novel, Charles de Lint returns with a new tale of magic, loss, and redemption, set in the Southwest. Centered on a remarkable female protagonist and entirely self-contained, this is modern urban fantasy as invented and pioneered by de Lint himself.
Altagracia—her friends call her Grace— has a tattoo of Nuestra Señora de Altagracia on her shoulder; she's got a Ford Motor Company tattoo running down her leg; and she has grease worked so deep into her hands that it'll never wash out.
Grace works at Sanchez Motor Works, customizing hot rods. A few blocks around her small apartment building is all her world—from the grocery store where she buys beans, tamales, and cigarettes to the library, the little record shop, and the Solona Music Hall. Which is where she meets John Burns, just two weeks too late.
Grace and John fall for each other, and that would be wonderful, except that they're both haunted by unfinished business. Before their relationship can be resolved, they're both going to have to learn things they don’t know about the world of the living and the world beyond. About what's truly valuable—and why it's necessary to let some things go.
► Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint's vivid, original world. ◄ Alice Hoffman
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Cover art by John Jude Palencar