Ebook: Icarus and Aria

Romeo and Juliet, re-imagined. Although Icarus and Aria, like its forerunner, is written in verse, it is firmly situated in the present. Icarus Alzaro is a rookie football star just signed to a high profile contract with the Aztechs of Phoenix, Arizona. Jimmy Jones, the owner of the Aztechs, has a sullen teenage daughter named Aria. The two meet at a party to celebrate Icarus's joining the team, spend the night together and sneak away to the mountains together. By the next morning, their disappearance is a media sensation. The two young lovers are eventually, unavoidably pulled apart by forces and faces that surround them, a cast ranging from Dina, Aria's smart-mouthed best friend, to Primalo, head of El Imaginero, a crime ring linked to drug-dealing and a spate of murders and Icarus's brother. Icarus and Aria unflinchingly examines the state of America today, where matters of race, gender, fame and media exposure overlap and interrelate in violent and tragic ways.