THE BLUE OF THE SKY by Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo

THE BLUE OF THE SKY by MELISSA CORLISS DELORENZO is forthcoming Fall 2026. Set in 1984 in a North Central Massachusetts town that has already seen its best days, The Blue of the Sky is told from the point of view of fourteen-year-old Laura who views the world with an innocent wisdom, and single mother Janet who has sworn not to let her past heartbreaks embitter her. 

Janet, navigating HIV in the early days of the AIDS crisis, and Laura, coming of age with the uncertainty of a sick mother whose diagnosis is being kept from her, share a treasured and loving bond that is being threatened by secrets and an illness that has no hope and no cure.

Janet becomes estranged from her parents and her cherished Aunt Grace after she finds herself pregnant at seventeen. On her own, Janet struggles until she finds safe haven at the Washing Well Laundromat. When Janet’s health begins a rapid decline, her most desperate wish becomes to survive until Laura’s eighteenth birthday, and with every doctor’s visit, that wish is growing more and more tenuous. It is now clear that she must find someone to take care of Laura after she is gone.

Fourteen-year-old Laura cannot wait to get away from the mean girls of junior high. When she starts high school in the fall, she plans to disappear and find new friends who don’t make fun of her bookworm ways, the apartment above the laundromat where she lives with her mother, or the terrible illness that is becoming harder to keep secret. Laura finds everything she hopes for in high school: genuine friends, a part in the school play, and a crush on a skater boy. And to her own disbelief, she manages to distance herself from the mean girls. But muting the joy of her high school triumphs is the ever-growing awareness that something is very wrong with her beloved mother.

When the bullies return, Laura must find her voice or risk both her newfound self-worth and her loyalty to her mother. And when tensions from the lies and withholding between mother and daughter reach a tipping point, Janet must reveal the truth to Laura or risk losing her and confront the past by reaching out to Aunt Grace or leave her daughter’s future in uncertainty.