Unveiling the Berlin Novel

Yesterday, Tamra Tuller and I finished the copy editing work on my Berlin 1983 novel.  Due out from Chronicle in early 2014, the book sprung from a conversation I had with Tamra and from travels to a city I did not expect to love as much as I most fervently did.

With flap copy now finalized, I have the green light to share that with you.  Little by little, this book now makes its way into the world.

The photograph above is not the cover, of course.  But it is a glimpse of the Berlin I found in the summer of 2011.

It is February 1983, and Berlin is a divided city—a miles-long barricade separating east from west. But the city isn’t the only thing that is divided. Ada, almost 16, lives with her mother and grandmother among the rebels, punkers, and immigrants of Kreuzberg, just west of the wall. Stefan, 18, lives east with his brooding grandmother in a faceless apartment bunker of Friedrichshain, his telescope pointed toward freedom. Bound by love and separated by circumstance, their only chance lies in a high-risk escape. But will Stefan find the courage to leap? Will Ada keep waiting for the boy she has only seen four times a year ever since she can remember? Or will forces beyond their control stand in their way?
 
Told in the alternating voices of the pink-haired graffiti artist and the boy she loves, this is a story of daring and sacrifice, choices and consequences, and love that will not wait.