Pasadena

By: Sherri L. Smith

Narrated by: Rebecca Soler

"Beautiful clothes, bad habits, ugly secrets: Sherri L. Smith probes the vulnerable underbellies of a lot of toothy sharks in this page-turning California noir." (E. Lockhart, New York Times best-selling author of We Were Liars)

Bad things happen everywhere. Even in the land of sun and roses.

When Jude's best friend is found dead in a swimming pool, her family calls it an accident. Her friends call it suicide. But Jude calls it what it is: murder. And someone has to pay.

Now everyone is a suspect - family and friends alike. And Jude is digging up the past like bones from a shallow grave. Anything to get closer to the truth. But that's the thing about secrets. Once they start turning up, nothing is sacred. And Jude's got a few skeletons of her own.

In a homage to the great noir stories of Los Angeles, award-winning author Sherri L. Smith's Pasadena is a tale of love, damage, and salvation set against the backdrop of California's City of Roses.

©2016 Sherri L. Smith (P)2016 Listening Library

Critic reviews

"Enthralling! From page one, I was inside the life (and death) of Pasadena. Smith has created a world that is at once startlingly real and heartbreakingly unreal. Smith’s novel had me leaning forward in my seat trying to remember to breathe. In Jude, there is some of all of us - knowing deep truths but hoping for something else, hoping somehow to change a history already set in motion." (Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming)

"Beautiful clothes, bad habits, ugly secrets: Sherri L. Smith probes the vulnerable underbellies of a lot of toothy sharks in this page-turning California noir. Pasadena is stylish and still sad, chilling and still hopeful, open-hearted and still mysterious. Smith is an author with astonishing range and she’s a stellar storyteller." (E. Lockhart, New York Times best-selling author of We Were Liars)

"Impossible to put down.... Fascinating, tragic, and equal parts glossy and gritty, this is a noir investigation of familial expectations, tension, and turmoil." (School Library Journal)

Clever Metaphors, Sad Story

The main character is Jude, patron saint of lost causes. That describes her mission, to find out who murdered her best friend, and the people who surround her. This is a sad story about teenage frustration, scars from the past, and how some things just aren't meant to be.