{"product_id":"nightshade-9781998336272","title":"Nightshade","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA gorgeous, Gothic, Romany coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the 1980s Southern Ontario tobacco belt--with a dash of magic realism.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLonging for glamour and riches and freedom, Zelda is a young woman who chafes against her Romany identity and her family's poverty. Everything changes when she's lured away from working alongside her mother and aunts and other migrant workers in the tobacco fields and is hired as an assistant and good luck charm to the charismatic Trixie Tormentine.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat starts out as a summer of ease and access to the unfettered wealth of the Tormentines--Trixie's husband Jack owns the tobacco farm that employs Zelda's family and friends--unspools into dangerous displays of power and manipulation. One of the Romany family's puppets, grandmother Puri Dai, acts as Zelda's confidante and mentor, and warns her about the devil of the tobacco fields, a harbinger of destruction.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs Zelda struggles with her simmering feelings toward the Tormentines, the devil appears to her one night in a motel parking lot. Can Puri Dai's love pull Zelda back from the brink and into a new future? The fate of her family depends on it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLynn Hutchinson Lee\u003c\/b\u003e is an award-winning author 'of Anglo-Romany descent on her father's side. Her short fiction was published in \u003ci\u003eRoom\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWagtail: The Roma Women's Poetry Anthology\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere. An excerpt from \u003ci\u003eNightshade\u003c\/i\u003e won first prize in the 2022 Joy Kogawa Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2022 Swedish Writers' Festival Prize. In 2023, \u003ci\u003eNightshade\u003c\/i\u003e was shortlisted for the Guernica Prize. Her flash fiction won the Editors' Choice Award in Guernica's \u003ci\u003eThis Will Only Take a Minute\u003c\/i\u003e. Her novella \u003ci\u003eOrigins of Desire in Orchid Fens\u003c\/i\u003e is published with Stelliform Press. Lynn writes in Toronto, cooks for friends, feeds birds, and gets lost in her garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Assembly Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52103895089426,"sku":"9781998336272","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_c9b8cfe0-ed79-454d-823d-63473d4d705f.jpg?v=1773160235","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/nightshade-9781998336272","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}