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In this stunning, Lambda Literary Award-winning debut novel, Amber Dawn subverts the classic hero's quest adventure to create a dark post-feminist vision. Sub Rosa's reluctant heroine is a teenaged runaway named "Little"; she stumbles upon an underground society of ghosts and magicians, missing girls and would-be johns: a place called Sub Rosa. Not long after she is initiated into this family of magical prostitutes, Little is called upon to lead them through a maze of feral darkness: a calling burdened with grotesque enemies, strange allies, and memories from a foggy past. Sub Rosa is a beautiful, gutsy, fantastical allegory of our times.
"Amber Dawn's Sub Rosa is a masterpiece of imagination. It's haunting, chilling at points and then just so sweet. Her writing is stealthy and seductive, wise and witty and clever. Lock Mary Gaitskill in a closet with Francesca Lia Block and they might emerge with a map to Sub Rosa: a glorious mystery that creeps you out and then totally enchants." —Michelle Tea, author of Valencia and Rose of No Man's Land
"Amber Dawn's story is a sinister fairy tale, as intoxicating as any of the Glories [characters] but also an allegory for the emotional hazards of sex work." —Bust
"A uniquely rewarding read.... Amber Dawn keeps the proceedings at a darkly whimsical remove from the real hurts of the world. She knows we know that pain is real, that women are made chattels, that masters are cruel. She's after a larger vision that raises questions about the entire emotionally fraught edifice of our received beliefs about sex, men and women, roles and rights and abuses." — The Globe and Mail (One of the Best Books of 2010)
Amber Dawn: Amber Dawn is a writer, filmmaker, and performance artist. She is the editor of Fist of the Spider Woman and co-editor of With a Rough Tongue. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.