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by R. M. Romero
Lakelore meets "Orpheus and Eurydice" when two Miami teens travel to the underworld to retrieve their girlfriend's soul.
Andres Santos of São Paulo was all swinging fists and firecracker fury, a foot soldier in the war between his parents, until he drowned in the Tietê River… and made a bargain with Death for a new life. A year later, his parents have relocated the family to Miami, but their promises of a fresh start quickly dissolve in the summer heat.
Instead of fists, Andres now uses music to escape his parents' battles. While wandering Miami Beach, he meets two girls: photographer Renee, a blaze of fire, and dancer Liora, a ray of sunshine. The three become a polyamorous triad, happy, despite how no one understands their relationship. But when a car accident leaves Liora in a coma, Andres and Renee are shattered.
Then Renee proposes a radical solution: She and Andres must go into the underworld to retrieve their girlfriend's spirit and reunite it with her body—before it's too late. Their search takes them to the City of the dead, where painters bleed color, songs grow flowers, and regretful souls will do anything to forget their lives on earth. But finding Liora's spirit is only the first step in returning to the living world. Because when Andres drowned, he left a part of himself in the underworld—a part he's in no hurry to meet again. But it is eager to be reunited with him...
In verse as vibrant as the Miami skyline, critically acclaimed author R.M. Romero has crafted a masterpiece of magical realism and an openhearted ode to the nature of healing.
"Spun with allusions to mythology and literature, Romero's novel in verse ensnares hearts and imaginations through vivid and memorable poetic craft that captures the ache and complexity of love... An alluring and lyrical journey." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Employing action-oriented and descriptive verse ... Romero ... pulls loosely from Dante's Inferno as well as Latinx, Judaic, Greek, and Afro-Caribbean mythologies to craft this surreal queer polyamorous love story." —Publishers Weekly
"In her polyamorous take on Orpheus and Eurydice, Romero writes in dreamy verses that draw on current events and pop culture. Like a good cover song, this will strike a chord in older teens with a fondness for the classics." —Booklist
"Death's Country is a jaw-dropping, heart-wrenching examination of queer love and identity. Romero fully reimagines the Underworld with poetic grandeur to craft a story that frequently left me breathless. A must-read adventure!" —#1 New York Times bestselling author Mark Oshiro
"R. M. Romero wields words both like a brush and a blade in Death's Country, painting vivid images one moment and then making them bleed with searing symbolism the next. Powerfully emotive, Death's Country shows how we keep growing and learning and becoming ourselves—even in the underworld." —Autumn Krause, critically acclaimed author of Before the Devil Knows You're Here
This information about Death's Country was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
R.M. Romero is a Jewish Latina and author of fairy tales for children and adults. She lives in Miami Beach with her cat, Henry VIII, and spends her summers helping to maintain Jewish cemeteries in Poland. You can visit her online at rrmromero.com or on Instagram @rmromeroauthor.
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