Ginny Dugan is a lot like me -- if I were living in 1920s New York, that is. Instead of sitting hunched over a laptop, telling stories heartbreakingly tailored to an ever-shifting algorithm, Ginny is an aspiring journalist locked into the inescapable role of an advice columnist. So of course when kidnappings and murders become Harlem's latest scandal, she sees the story for what it really is: Not a mystery waiting to be solved, but instead, a human life deserving of rescue.
But a thrilling team-up between a private investigator and an ambitious writer isn't all that Glitter in the Dark has to offer -- so much more, in fact. Plenty of genuinely impressive debuts have made it to my desk over the years, but Olesya Lyuzna's may be one of few that has spoken to me on a particularly deep, personal level.
There is plenty of tragedy strewn across these pages, as is to be expected -- if there is a case to be solved, there first must be a victim (or two ... or three ...). Ginny's presence in Harlem's dangerous nightclubs is at first self-serving, but what good future detective doesn't have a vice -- particularly of the liquid variety? It eventually becomes her means of figuring out who's really behind it all. And so with these tragedies also emerges hope -- a lasting love between sisters, a friendship built to last. That's always my hope with a story featuring queer characters. That there isn't just dismay, but within it also, triumph.
This book, possibly most significantly, speaks to the queer experience in a way so many other stories don't. Ginny's brief questioning of her sexuality, wondering if her feelings for a woman are real or even right, but not coming to a definite conclusion by the end of the story -- that's how this plays out for so many of us. The era of questioning can last eons. Some of us come out and even still wonder if we really meant to -- it's not a clear path. It zigzags, it backtracks. It's confusing. But it's real, it's valid, and Ginny is one of the best representations of that harrowing leg of the journey I've read in a book in quite some time.
And therein lies the true magic of Glitter in the Dark -- its ability to immerse you into its world, to see yourself in its characters even a century removed from your present. So much hasn't changed in all that time. To question yourself, your place in the world, who you want to be, who you want to be with -- that is universal, and it is timeless.
But for some, it is also specific enough to be a real comfort. So maybe not all of Ginny's questions yet have answers, and neither do yours. But Ginny makes plenty of discoveries throughout this book, and just like her, so can you -- about who you are, how you want to spend your years, and what -- preferably who -- matters in your world most of all.
Glitter in the Dark is available now wherever you get your books.