Oh my heart!

"The irony. They were sending me to a home for people the church considered outcasts. A perfect fit."

I sobbed.

Saskia's life changes forever when her father decides it is time to move back to his home in the United States. She leaves behind her Opa and a life full of whimsy for one where she struggles to find her place. After turning to religion and falling for a seminarian, she finds herself pregnant and spends the rest of her semester at Pippin House, a hospice for men dying of AIDS, as she recovers from an abortion she was pushed into.

The ability to fit such an emotional and compelling story in such few pages is not one everyone has, but one Julie Turner sure does. I fell in love with Saskia through her relationships with others. Through her love for her mother, her Opa, her father, Max, Marlena, and eventually herself. Don't let the title fool you, A Date With the Fairy Drag Queen, is not a lighthearted fun story about drag and the LGBTQ+ community. It is one about love, loss, pain, and healing through found family. It is one that I think will stick with me for a long time.