Vanessa L. Torres
Vanessa L. Torres is former dancer and an author of books for young readers. She loves to read anything with a vivid setting, but there's a special place in her heart for urban tales. She was born and raised in Minneapolis Minnesota, and now lives in Olympia Washington with her husband and daughter. When she's not writing, she balances her time between anything outdoors, and her other job as a firefighter/paramedic. And when the snow hits, you might catch a glimpse of her ski patrolling on the mountain.
The Turning Pointe
Vanessa L. Torres
A novel about a teenage Latinx girl finding freedom through dance and breaking expectations in 1980s Minnesota.
When sixteen-year-old Rosa Dominguez pirouettes, she is poetry in pointe shoes. And as the daughter of a tyrant ballet Master, Rosa seems destined to become the star principal dancer of her studio. But Rosa would do anything for one hour in the dance studio upstairs where Prince, the Purple One himself, is in the house.
After her father announces their upcoming auditions for a concert with Prince, Rosa is more determined than ever to succeed. Then Nikki--the cross-dressing, funky boy who works in the dance shop--leaps into her life. Weighed down by family expectations, Rosa is at a crossroads, desperate to escape so she can show everyone what she can do when freed of her pointe shoes. Now is her chance to break away from a life in tulle, grooving to that unmistakable Minneapolis sound reverberating through every bone in her body.
On the Wings of la Noche
Vanessa L. Torres
Noche is a Lechuza by night, an ethereal jet-black owl who guides the dead to the after. Except now, Noche cannot bring herself to escort her dead girlfriend, whose soul is fading the harder Noche holds on—an aching romance about first and second loves and finding the strength to let go.Death waits for Estrella (Noche) Villanueva. In her human form, she is a lonely science girl grieving the tragic accidental drowning of her girlfriend, Dante Fuentes. At night, she is a Lechuza who visits her dead girlfriend at the lake, desperate for more time with her. The longer Dante’s soul roams the earth, the more likely it is that she will fade into the unknown, lost forever, but Noche cannot let go . . .That’s when a new kid comes to town, Jax, another science nerd like Noche. They connect in a way she can’t ignore, seemingly pulled together by an invisible thread. For the first time, Noche begins to imagine a life without Dante. As Noche’s heart begins to beat for two people, her guilt flares. Then, she finds herself at risk of losing both Jax and Dante, and Noche is forced to question her purpose as a lechuza and everything she has ever believed in.
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