Saffron Bloom — Heather Neff

Saffron Bloom, a novel by Heather NeffTwo men fall in love with a girl.Then she becomes a woman.Sixteen-year-old Saffron Hunter can handle herself on the streets of Detroit. Raised by her mother, a no-nonsense nurse, and her doting grandfather, Saffron's dorky glasses, drab rags and middle-school hair hide a quick-thinking, highly perceptive girl. Saffron believes books are better than boys, so it's just dumb luck that one summer afternoon she ends up in a park sharing a joint with a bunch of kids...until one boy goes too far.What happens that afternoon intrigues Ishmael, the weed man whose past brought him from an orphanage in Kenya to the wealthiest enclaves of Detroit. Mysterious, moody, and unpredictable, Ishmael sets his sights on Saffron and slowly works his way into the girl's heart, even managing to gain the approval of her mother. Saffron and Ishmael begin an intensely erotic affair, buoyed by alcohol and drugs. Their afternoon trysts, however, mean one thing to the man, but something entirely different to the girl, who desperately tries, and painfully fails to win his love.By her 19th birthday, the streetwise ostrich has grown into a guarded, but beautiful swan.Excited by her first job and the freedom of the hot summer nights, Saffron encounters Tristan, the copper-haired bartender in a local downtown dive. Determined to protect herself from ever being hurt again, Saffron struggles against the fire the strangely engaging, secretly gifted musician ignites in her heart. Once she enters Tristan's lair, a renovated factory in the heart of the city, Saffron's resolve is lost. Never had she dreamed of such a sense of safety, instinctual understanding, and passionate devotion from anyone, much less a man whose background is so different from her own.Shunned by the outside world, Saffron and Tristan slowly build a private universe. Their relationship deepens with each passing day...until Saffron begins to uncover devastating lies and half-told truths about both Tristan and Ishmael, whose chance reappearance sets a bitter rivalry in motion that disrupts all their lives for years to come.Saffron will one day have to choose between a man who promises her wealth and prominence, and another, who is still searching for the courage to love her. Over the course of her journey she will know the loneliness of separation and the agonizing challenge of forgiveness - while she struggles to carve out her own uniquely powerful place in the world.The author of novels exploring racism, addiction, intimate partner violence, and human trafficking, in Saffron Bloom Heather Neff has composed a sweeping tale about the long and labyrinthine path to deep and enduring love.Heather Neff is the author of the award-winning works Wisdom, Haarlem, Accident of Birth, and Blissfield. Visit her author website: www.heatherneffbooks.net