With the close of September, Anne Valente’s debut novel Our Hearts Will Burn Us Downapproaches its release date. A local school shooting leaves a St. Louis community reeling, especially high school juniors Matt, Zola, Nick, and Christina. The four main characters struggle to piece their lives back together and make sense of the tragedy while a series of fires continues to ravage the homes of victims’ families. Ultimately the story within is a stunning tale of the all-consuming nature of grief and the permanence of loss, in and of itself a statement about a society where mass violence is increasingly common.

Read Jackalope Magazine’s interview with author Anne Valente, where she discusses her debut novel Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down