It is the 2nd Monday in a row that I have the great honor of kicking off The Debutante Ball celebration of another one of our authors—this week, Aya de Leon! I am so grateful to have met Aya on The Debutante Ball! She has been a constant source of positive energy She is wonderfully funny and honest, and always keeps our spirits high. I have learned so much from Aya as well—no one works harder or juggles more, all the while making it seem effortless, like Ginger Rogers dancing backwards in high heels.
Now on to Aya’s debut, UPTOWN THIEF! Uptown Thief is a fabulously subversive novel that opened up a whole new world of reading for me. Here is a feminist action story, a sex-positive novel about sex workers who are wonderfully drawn, deeply felt characters. It’s a novel about power in all its forms. It weaves a story about sexism, racism and classism into a steamy, thrilling page-turner. You will cheer for our hero Marisol and her partners in crime the whole way through, your pulse will quicken during the caper scenes AND the sex scenes, and your heart will break for the suffering that so many of the women in the novel have endured.
Has Aya created a whole new genre? I kept asking myself. UPTOWN THIEF is like nothing I have ever read. It’s bold, it’s audacious, and it’s brave. Just like its author.
Congratulations on the launch, Aya!