Freedom Boulevard

Welcome to Cordova. The neon is cheap, the rent is weekly, and the shadows will eat you alive.

Andy Blackwell is a bisexual hip-hop artist who burned every bridge in Maryland to chase the neon lights of the West. But in Cordova, exposure isn't free. Desperate to keep a roof over his head, Andy finds himself entangled in the brutal web of Tony Vee, a nightlife kingpin who treats human beings like expendable assets. Traded between seedy club promoters, lonely sugar daddies, and the criminal underworld, Andy is sprinting headfirst toward a dead end.

Sakeenah Bailey is a bipolar, trans Muslima writer fleeing the suffocating judgment of conservative Connecticut. She arrives in the desert seeking a creative awakening, but quickly drowns in the legalized, soul-numbing haze of the city's medical marijuana industry. Trapped in a roach-infested motel and tangled in a violently toxic romance, Sakeenah trades her spiritual compass for a paycheck in a corporate weed factory.

They are two sides of the same counterfeit coin-strangers bleeding out in the same dystopian city. One will find a ladder out of the pit. The other will become a ghost in the machine.

Written with unapologetic, razor-sharp prose, Freedom Boulevard is a visceral, neon-noir descent into the American underbelly. Yusuf Blanton delivers an agonizing, authentic masterpiece about addiction, the dark side of the cannabis boom, queer survival, and the brutal cost of chasing a dream in a godless city.

Perfect for fans of gritty urban fiction, LGBTQ+ psychological dramas, and raw stories of addiction and redemption.