Pointe, Claw
Jessie Vale dances in an elite ballet program that requires perfection to land a spot with the professional company. When Jessie is cast in an animalistic avant-garde production, her careful composure cracks wide open. Nothing has felt more dangerous.
Dawn McCormick’s world is full of holes. She wakes in strange places, bruised, battered, and unable to speak. The doctors are out of ideas. No one knows what to do with a girl like this.
These childhood friends are both running out of time. Jessie has one shot at her ballet dream. Dawn’s blackouts are getting worse. At every turn, they crash into the many ways girls are watched, judged, used, and discarded.
Should they play it safe or go feral? The answer lies in the forest with a bear in a cage.
About Amber J. Keyser (Bend, Oregon Author)
Amber J. Keyser is an evolutionary biologist-turned-writer, who loves stories about heroes, scientists, and adventurers. She grew up in Oregon backpacking, fishing, and white-water rafting. Now she lives on the dry side of the mountains with her husband, two kids, and dog that looks like a muppet. Every summer she returns to a cabin in Canada that was built by her grandmother, Ontario's first licensed, female canoe guide. If she had a choice, she would travel everywhere by canoe or on horseback.
Some of Amber’s forthcoming and recent books include Pointe, Claw (Carolrhoda Lab, 2017), a novel about claiming the territory of the body; The V-Word (Beyond Words, 2016), an anthology of personal essays by women about first time sexual experiences; and Sneaker Century: A History of Athletic Shoes (Twenty-First Century Books, 2015). She is the co-author with Kiersi Burkhart of the middle grade series Quartz Creek Ranch (Darby Creek, 2017).
