Bad things happen everywhere. Even in the land of sun and roses.

When Jude's best friend is found dead in a swimming pool, her family calls it an accident. Her friends call it suicide. But Jude calls it what it is- murder. And someone has to pay. Now everyone is a suspect-family and friends alike. And Jude is digging up the past like bones from a shallow grave. Anything to get closer to the truth. But that's the thing about secrets. Once they start turning up, nothing is sacred. And Jude's got a few skeletons of her own.

In a homage to the great noir stories of Los Angeles, award-winning author Sherri L. Smith's Pasadena is a tale of love, damage and salvation set against the backdrop of California's City of Roses.

"Enthralling! . . . Smith has created a world that is at once startlingly real and heartbreakingly unreal. Smith's novel had me leaning forward in my seat trying to remember to breathe." -Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming