City of Roses by Kip Manley

City of Roses is about what happens when Jo Maguire, a highly strung underemployed telemarketer, meets Ysabel Perry, a princess of unspecifiable pedigree. It’s also about hearts broken cleanly and otherwise, the City of Portland, Spenser, those moments in pop songs when the bass and all of the drums except maybe a handclap suddenly drop out of the bridge leaving you hanging from a slender aching thread of melody waiting almost dreading the moment when the beat comes back, and the occasional swordfight.