Summer, 1518. A strange sickness sweeps through Strasbourg: women dance in the streets, some until they fall down dead. As rumors of witchcraft spread, suspicion turns toward Lavinia and her family, and Lavinia may have to do the unimaginable to save herself and everyone she loves.
Five centuries later, a pair of red shoes seal to Rosella Oliva’s feet, making her dance uncontrollably. They draw her toward a boy who knows the dancing fever’s history better than anyone: Emil, whose family was blamed for the fever five hundred years ago. But there’s more to what happened in 1518 than even Emil knows, and discovering the truth may decide whether Rosella survives the red shoes.
from Amazon
tl;dr: I will read anything Anna-Marie McLemore writes.
Longer answer: I love that all of McLemore’s books feature queer characters of color. I know that, even thought there aren’t Black queer characters, I will still see my own queerness reflected back out of the pages of their books. After When the Moon Was Ours totally rocked my reading world, I knew that McLemore was going to be one of my autobuy authors.
I was in Albuquerque last week by myself. Bored and lonely, I went to the bookstore and spent 45 minutes trying to find this book. I found the book for my book club instead, and went to purchase it.
When the man at the register asked if I’d found everything okay, I actually said (and this was out of character for me) that I hadn’t found the one book I was looking for. He looked it up, went to the back to get it for me, and then we proceeded to talk about great YA reads for the next 15 minutes.
I’m quite grateful for that bookseller. At that point, I’d been traveling for a week and was missing T and missing being in my own space. That he took the time to engage with me made all the difference for my evening.
the (book) supplier 