The Ballroom

In a collapsing Montreal, survival has become a game.Seventeen-year-old Bella and her father, Walter-a traumatized war veteran-live on the margins of a society unraveling under economic ruin and political fracture. Each day, they enter the ballroom: a repurposed relic of luxury where the desperate gather to compete in a strange and brutal ritual.The rules are simple. Count the people. Win the jackpot.Lose-and return to the cold.As hunger tightens its grip and the past refuses to stay buried, Bella and Walter cling to one another in a world that offers no guarantees-only odds. Around them, lives intersect and fracture: the displaced, the broken, the forgotten. Each carrying their own quiet calculations of hope and despair.But survival is more than numbers. And love, in a place like this, may be the most dangerous gamble of all.The Ballroom is a haunting and deeply human portrait of resilience, dignity, and the fragile arithmetic of survival.

Pages: 228, Paperback, 8th House Publishing