The Turning Pointe Hardcover – February 22, 2022 by Vanessa L. Torres

Description

Author: Torres Vanessa L.

Color: Purple

Package Dimensions: 28x210x562

Number Of Pages: 432

Release Date: 22-02-2022

Details: Product Description

A bold and emotionally gripping novel about a teenage Latinx girl finding freedom through dance and breaking expectations in 1980s Minnesota.

When sixteen-year-old Rosa Dominguez pirouettes, she is poetry in pointe shoes. And as the daughter of a tyrant ballet Master, Rosa seems destined to become the star principal dancer of her studio. But Rosa would do anything for one hour in the dance studio upstairs where Prince, the Purple One himself, is in the house.

After her father announces their upcoming auditions for a concert with Prince, Rosa is more determined than ever to succeed. Then Nikki–the cross-dressing, funky boy who works in the dance shop–leaps into her life. Weighed down by family expectations, Rosa is at a crossroads, desperate to escape so she can show everyone what she can do when freed of her pointe shoes. Now is her chance to break away from a life in tulle, grooving to that unmistakable Minneapolis sound reverberating through every bone in her body.

About the Author

Vanessa L. Torres is a Latinx writer who has worked as a flight medic and currently works as a firefighter paramedic. She’s a founding member of the B.R.A.V.E. Foundation, a volunteer organization that works with firefighting and medical personnel in developing countries and is the recipient of the Paul Harris Fellow award from Rotary International for her work in Guatemala. Vanessa is also the co-coordinator of The Olympia Writers Group, a critique group with one-hundred-plus members, and an active member of SCBWI and The Pacific Northwest Writers Association. Transplanted from Minnesota, she is married to another firefighter paramedic and they live in the Pacific Northwest with their nine-year-old daughter. This is her debut novel.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Star in Studio 6A
Charcoal. No, sulfur–the familiar stench of my arm hair singeing. I correct my posture. One more second and I’ll leave class with an ugly blister, my punishment for having droopy arms and being late–again. My father, Master Geno, pockets his lighter and moves on. I let my elbow drop again, while the Master’s threat terrifies the rest of the swans into perfectly lifted ballerina form. None of the dancers have actually witnessed him burning anyone for real. I’m the only girl with enough balls to test that rumor, even though I like my skin the way it is, the chestnut Mexican in me unscarred by Geno’s infamous red cigarette lighter.
“Rosa, croisé devant,” he barks, stomping his steel-toed cowboy boot way too close to my straying pointe shoe. “Late to class and poor position. Unacceptable.”
Again, I adjust myself, though I know my way is better. Effacé devant would present the dancer. Like, “Hello! You’re about to see something totally rad.”
I swear Geno’s pointy ears twitch, cold ashy eyes piercing through my skull as if he hears my thoughts. I switch it up, and he chills.
The setting sun floods my space and I unravel, losing myself in its midsummer intensity. This ancient ballet studio with its cracked mirrors and peeling paint doesn’t exist. It’s no longer 1983. Gone are the black-and-white photos that line the brittle plaster walls. Dancers past, my mother among them–and my older sister–freeze-framed in moments of graceful elegance. I’m far away from here, adrift in a time when my arms could do whatever they damn well pleased. The piano adagio morphs into a funky keyboard that pulsates my fingertips. My head rolls a full circle as if my long curls are down.
I bourrée out of the sunbeam. The funk disappears and I’m back in the present, just in time to see the side-eye Geno’s giving my midsection.
“Suck it in, Rosa darling. I shudder to think how big your lunch was.” He messes with the collar of his leather motorcycle jacket, then smooths his feathered gray hair.
I do as he demands because he’s a junk-food bloodhound and a sniff away from sussing out the Pudding Pop I’d scarfed earlier. I can smell the chalky