House of Hearts

Francesca Lia Block

Also By Francesca Lia Block

The Thorn Necklace: Healing through Writing and the Creative Process

Beyond the Pale Motel

The Elementals

Pink Smog

The Rose and The Beast: Fairy Tales Retold

The Hanged Man

Dangerous Angels

Weetzie Bat

and more...

this is a genuine rare bird book

Rare Bird Books
6044 North Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 90042
rarebirdbooks.com

Also available in e-book and unabridged audiobook,
as well as a limited edition vinyl audiobook
narrated by Scout laRue Willis

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic.
For more information, address:
Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department
6044 North Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 90042

Cover Photograph by Algirdas Grigaitis
Cover Design by Robert Schlofferman
Interior Design by Hailie Johnson

epub isbn: 9781644283127

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Block, Francesca Lia, author.
Title: House of hearts / by Francesca Lia Block.
Description: First Hardcover Edition. | Los Angeles, Calif. : Rare Bird, [2022]
Identifiers: LCCN 2021059619 | ISBN 9781644282625 (hardcover)
Classification: LCC PS3552.L617 H67 2022 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059619

I’ve traveled over

Dry earth and floods

Hell and high water

To bring you my love.

—PJ Harvey

Contents

Part I

I See a Darkness

Precious Things

Jennifer’s Body

Bluebeard

Heart-Shaped Box

Common Disaster

Atomic Dog

Part II

California Love

Meet ze Monsta

Long Snake Moan

To Bring You My Love

I Want Your Hands on Me

I Am Stretched on Your Grave

Jackie’s Strength

Petals

Essence

Part III

Under the Bridge

Lost Woman Song

Losing My Religion

All is Full of Love

Acknowledgments

Part I

I See a Darkness

Bad things can happen in the desert.

Beneath the horned head graffitied on a burned and gutted building in Bombay Beach, the scrawled words read: “It didn’t always used to be this way.” Too true, Izzy Ames thought, looking around at the mobile homes and a few houses lining unpaved streets beneath the dike that separated broken town from toxic sea. It didn’t always used to be this way. And it would not be this way forever.

Izzy watched Cyrus Rivera stand from a crouch where he’d been fingering the soil he’d hauled to Bombay Beach in his Chevy Silverado. His jeans slid down over the waistband of his boxers, and he hitched his thumbs through his belt loops and turned to face her. The steep intelligence of his brow, his powerful nose and cheekbones, the stubble on his chin, a mouth that brooded, even in a smile, over a lawless array of teeth. And his eyes—irises the color of seaweed hid behind his shades. She’d once read that true hazel is rare, derived from a combination of pigments. Eumelanin. Pheomelanin.