City of Smoke and Sea - Paperback

by Malia Marquez (Author)

"Part mystery, part magical, and completely captivating."--Karen Winn, author of Our Little World

Queenie Rivers was raised by her grandparents in coastal Los Angeles. As she approaches thirty, her erratic lifestyle is forced back on course by a car accident and her grandmother's intervention.

But her recovery is interrupted by a break-in and Gran's death. Gran's last act was to set Queenie up with a job at an upscale seaside bistro with a shady reputation--the owner of which, it turns out, was once a close friend. As Queenie digs into Gran's past for answers about the break-in, the murder, and the unnerving circumstances surrounding the restaurant and her new boss, she discovers that her grandmother, a Romani Holocaust survivor, kept many secrets, some of them otherworldly--secrets that become hers to unravel when she becomes a suspect in Gran's murder case.

Author Biography

Malia Márquez was born in New Mexico and grew up in New England. She holds a BFA in 3D Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art & Design and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Her work in translation has appeared in Poetry Magazine and her short fiction and essays have been included in various journals and anthologies. Her first novel, This Fierce Blood, was published by Acre Books in 2021. Her second novel, City of Smoke and Sea, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. She writes and teaches in Los Angeles.