67. Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa...

From the press release:

Set in the slums of New Orleans, among clusters of crack houses and abandoned buildings, Dirty Little Angels is the story of sixteen year old Hailey Trosclair. When the Trosclair family suffers a string of financial hardships and a miscarriage, Hailey finds herself looking to God to save her family. When her prayers go unanswered, Hailey puts her faith in Moses Watkins, a failed preacher and ex-con. Fascinated by Moses's lopsided view of religion, Hailey, and her brother Cyrus, begin spending time down at an abandoned bank that Moses plans to convert into a drive-through church. Gradually, though, Moses's twisted religious beliefs become increasingly more violent, and Hailey and Cyrus soon find themselves trapped in a world of danger and fear from which there may be no escape.

I finally got around to reading Dirty Little Angels, and boy. It packs a whammy of a story into such a little (anything under 300 pages is "little" to me...) book. Hailey is complicated. Adrift. Unable to do anything to help anyone around her, unable to figure out what to do about her mom's depression, her dad's addiction, her brother's life of violence. Moses, the preacher, is creepy. The kind of guy who'd make my skin crawl. But to Hailey, he offers hope that God might save her family.

Unfortunately for Hailey, Moses is not the kind of guy who'll bring salvation to anyone. *sigh* But that's something Hailey needs to learn for herself. And boy, does she. A gripping debut novel from Chris Tusa.

Title: Dirty Little Angels
Author: Chris Tusa
ISBN-13: 978-1-60489-030-3
Paperback: 147 pages
Publisher: The University of Alabama's Livingston Press

Teaser Tuesdays - Apr. 14...

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall to a random page.
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• Share the title of the book that you're getting your teaser from... That way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!
• Please avoid spoilers!

"There's a whole slew of people who think I'm a rat bastard, Son. You know that. You really expect me to narrow down a list that long to one or two people?"

Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa ~ pg. 96

A lil' plug for Dirty Little Angels, by Chris Tusa...

Here's a little plug for a debut novel by Chris Tusa. I read the first chapter at his website, and was impressed enough that I asked for a copy to read and review. =) Dirty Little Angels will be released on March 1st by the University of West Alabama Press.

From the press release:

Set in the slums of New Orleans, among clusters of crack houses and abandoned buildings, Dirty Little Angels is the story of sixteen year old Hailey Trosclair. When the Trosclair family suffers a string of financial hardships and a miscarriage, Hailey finds herself looking to God to save her family. When her prayers go unanswered, Hailey puts her faith in Moses Watkins, a failed preacher and ex-con. Fascinated by Moses's lopsided view of religion, Hailey, and her brother Cyrus, begin spending time down at an abandoned bank that Moses plans to convert into a drive-through church. Gradually, though, Moses's twisted religious beliefs become increasingly more violent, and Hailey and Cyrus soon find themselves trapped in a world of danger and fear from which there may be no escape.

Chris Tusa was born and raised in New Orleans. His work has appeared in Connecticut Review, Texas Review, Prairie Schooner, The New Delta Review, South Dakota Review, Southeast Review, Passages North, Spoon River, New York Quarterly, Louisiana Literature, Tar River, StorySouth, and others. He has studied under a number of notable writers, including Tim Gautreaux, Sidney Wade, and Debora Gregor. With the help of a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, he was able to complete his first book of poetry, Haunted Bones, which was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2006. Dirty Little Angels is his first novel. Tusa holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Florida. Aside from teaching in the English Department at LSU, he also acts as Managing Editor for Poetry Southeast.