Skye Ellison is 38, Black, queer, and has spent her adult life avoiding anything that might require her to stay in one place. She runs a successful travel company, lives out of a suitcase, and returns to her hometown of West Philly only occasionally to decompress before heading back out. When she was 26 and broke, a childhood friend named Cynthia asked her to donate eggs to help her have a child. Skye agreed and didn’t think much about it afterward.
Twelve years later, at an art opening, a kid named Vicky walks up to Skye and introduces herself as “her egg.” Cynthia died of cancer, and Vicky — sharp, headstrong, and not easily discouraged — has tracked down the woman whose DNA she carries. She wants to know who Skye is. She wants to know why she exists.
Skye’s first instinct is to flee, but something about Vicky won’t let her. For the first time in years, Skye stays put long enough to reckon with what she’s been running from: a childhood shaped by her father’s violence, a mother who didn’t protect her, and a deep suspicion that intimacy only ends in damage. The fact that she’s also falling for Vicky’s guardian doesn’t make any of this simpler.
Skye Falling is a West Philly novel, a queer love story, and the story of a woman who had spent decades perfecting the art of not needing anyone until a 12-year-old forced her to reconsider.
