Tuesday, October 15, 7:30pm
Pegasus Books Downtown
Michelle Ruiz Keil reads from and signs copies of All of Us with Wings, a YA magical realism novel about love, found family, and healing from trauma. An ode to post-punk San Francisco through the eyes of a Mexican-American girl.
“A spellbinding tale about finding magic in the mundane and hope in the unknown. Filled with dizzying danger and electrifying music, All of Us with Wings left me breathless.”
—Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being
About All of Us With Wings:
Seventeen-year-old Xochi is alone in San Francisco, running from her painful past: the mother who abandoned her, the man who betrayed her. Then one day, she meets Pallas, a precocious twelve-year-old who lives with her rockstar family in one of the city’s storybook Victorians. Xochi accepts a position as Pallas’s live-in governess and quickly finds her place in the girl’s tight-knit household, which operates on a free-love philosophy and easy warmth despite the band’s growing fame.
But on the night of the Vernal Equinox, as a concert afterparty rages in the house below, Xochi and Pallas perform a riot-grrrl ritual in good fun, accidentally summoning a pair of ancient beings bound to avenge the wrongs of Xochi’s past. She would do anything to preserve her new life, but with the creatures determined to exact vengeance on those who’ve hurt her, no one is safe—not the family Xochi’s chosen, nor the one she left behind.
About the Author:
Michelle Ruiz Keil is a Latinx novelist and playwright with an eye for the enchanted and a way with animals. She teaches writing with a focus on fairytale, divination, and archetype and curates All Kinds of Fur: A Fairytale Reading Series and Salon in Portland, Oregon. She has been a fellow at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and Lit Camp and is a member of Las Musas, a collective of Latinx kidlit authors. Her published short fiction can be found in Cosmonauts Avenue and the forthcoming anthology Color Outside The Lines. You can follow her on Twitter @MichelleRKeil and on Instagram @MichelleRuizKeil. ALL OF US WITH WINGS is her first novel.
PRAISE
A Barnes & Noble Most Anticipated #OwnVoices YA Book of 2019
A Paste Best Young Adult Book of June 2019
A Book Riot Most Anticipated LGBTQ Read of 2019
A Book Riot Must-Read Debut Book of 2019
“Keil’s ambitious debut is jam-packed with twists and depth and froth and function . . . [this is] a book about embracing everything—people, lifestyles, beliefs, experiences—and, in so doing, finding your own distinct power.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“In her debut novel, Michelle Ruiz Keil crafts a fantastical ode to the Golden City’s postpunk era.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“A spellbinding tale about finding magic in the mundane and hope in the unknown. Filled with dizzying danger and electrifying music, All of Us with Wings left me breathless.”
—Ruth Ozeki, Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning author of A Tale for the Time Being
“Michelle Ruiz Keil creates a vivid and original novel full of music, rage, and characters that sing with purpose. Keil is a new voice to keep an eye on.”
—Zoraida Córdova, award-winning author of Labyrinth Lost
“A love letter to live music, a poem to a city in novel form, and a poignantly nuanced examination of the ways in which performance impacts life on and off stage. In equal parts realistic detail and surreal vision, All of Us with Wings bursts off the page and goes with you into real life.”
—Anna-Marie McLemore, author of Stonewall Honor Book When the Moon Was Ours and Blanca & Roja
“All of Us with Wings is a decadent slice of post-punk rockstardom that will have you begging to stay at the party till sunrise. This gorgeous debut looks unflinchingly into often unexplored experiences of adolescence—abuse and addiction, lust and desire, found families and chosen homes—finding beauty and redemption even in the darkest places.”
—Tehlor Kay Mejia, author of We Set the Dark on Fire
“I’m convinced that Michelle Ruiz Keil has woven a magic spell into these pages. All of Us with Wings is gorgeous, gritty, and utterly transfixing.”
—Sara Holland, New York Times bestselling author of Everless
“Michelle Ruiz Keil puts exquisite language and wild imagination to the fierce onslaught of sensation and doubt that is adolescence. This is a story for young adults, but perhaps it is also a deeply poetic tale of what is lost in the transition to adulthood.”
—Joanna Rose, author of Little Miss Strange
“An irresistible punk rock spirit . . . sets it apart from standard fantasy fare.”
—Popsugar
“[An] atmospheric debut . . . Keil plays with prose and imagery, interweaving the dreamlike language of Francesca Lia Block with a Latin-American sensibility. The frank inclusion of sexual exploration and drug use adds an extra level of maturity to this thoughtful story about trauma and vengeance, adult decision making, and recovery.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This intricately constructed urban fantasy is complex and beautiful, blending folklore, San Franciscan history, the music scene, vampires, magic, and the intertwined lives of characters, including a cat named Peasblossom who sees and understands more than the humans . . . Fantasy fans will find this book appealing, fun, and hard to put down.”
—School Library Journal