Queen of Angels

Queen of Angels rollicks on the colorfully profane streets of 1970s New York amid comic romance, gangland violence, psychedelic drugs, and teenage heartbreak. Mick, the wild drug-dealing son of a wealthy Irish surgeon, has fallen hard for Terri, a guilt-ridden, 14-year-old from a poor Irish-Catholic family. As a ruse to evade Terri’s strict parents, the lovers join a production of Romeo and Juliet at Mick’s school. They recruit Mick’s brooding best friend Ferdinand and Terri’s repressed older sister Helen who are unexpectedly cast as Romeo and Juliet. The rehearsals that follow inspire action off-stage, and serve as a play-within-the-novel. Shakespeare’s poetic imagination finally explodes into their real lives, breaching the uncertain boundaries between flesh and fantasy, between dreams and reality, that define human existence. 

Queen of Angels is Riley Hennessey’s first novel.