Retrieving Angels

Where do you find the perfect boy, the boy all the girls on the radio sing about, the boy who will be better than God? Gina Fontana knows. After surviving a terrifying attack at the age of ten, Gina is haunted by paralyzing fears. Her mother laments that she is ruined. It becomes the big family problem and the big family secret. Gina copes by immersing herself in a dream world filled with the music of The Beatles. She becomes obsessed with Paul McCartney. He becomes her imaginary protector, her shining knight, and the boy who keeps all the bad thoughts away... until the day when a real flesh and blood boy comes along and intrudes on her comfortable fantasy. >>>Set in Miami in the 1960s and filled with characters as diverse, exuberant, and colorful as the South Florida landscape, RETRIEVING ANGELS is sometimes poignant, sometimes gritty, irreverent, funny, and sexy. Fifteen-year-old Gina Fontana is content to stay cocooned in her child world, writing in her diary, listening to her favorite albums on her HiFi. It is comforting. It is safe. But Jeff Tiger, a Miccosukee boy who knows how to navigate the waters of the Everglades as well as he knows how to race his motorcycle through the streets of Miami, believes he knows what Gina must do to find her courage and reclaim her life. Manny Becerra, Gina's childhood friend who spends his days lounging at the bottom of an empty swimming pool in his family's backyard while drinking Cuba Libres, boasts that he is already a man, that is until he meets Sharon a girl from New York City who is spending the summer on Miami Beach. Sharon Shankman has slept with six guys, maybe seven if she counts that ugly boy she woke up next to at her best friend's Sweet Sixteen birthday party. Sharon is growing up too fast. Is Manny ready for her? Manny actually feels the pain of Cupid's arrow piercing his heart the moment he falls for Sharon. Howard Pittman, Manny's best friend, is never so romantic. Tall, skinny, and socially awkward, Howard is soon lured into the easy and enticing hedonism of drugs and Sunday afternoon Love-Ins. Darlene Hamilton, Gina's neighbor, is anxious to her escape her large, demanding family. Her life was way different in Social Circle, Georgia when her real daddy was alive. She will do anything to get away from her white trash stepfather, her whimpering mother, and her annoying little brothers - and she does. Their stories weave together to form a startling tapestry during the Summer of Love. >>>RETRIEVING ANGELS moves as fast as a thunderstorm on a summer afternoon, as fast as that magical night when you first knew love and your whole world changed forever.