Thai Iced Tea & Rhinestones is the quirky true story of a San Francisco journalist and longtime Salsa and West Coast Swing dancer who moves to rural Oregon for love and decides to open a dance studio. As she acclimates to life in a small and conservative town working as a crime reporter and dance teacher, she finds herself on an sometimes-bumpy journey of self-discovery, culture shock and worlds colliding.
With the studio growing, she navigates self-doubt, relationship questions, and a Christmas parade dance disaster. Despite the hiccups, she feels an increasing sense of belonging in her new home, where everyone seems to know everyone - a Southern Oregon version of Stars Hollow. At first, the smallness of the town is disorienting: her new dance studio is across a hallway from her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend's photography studio, and a suspect she put in the police blotter for belly-bumping the manager of the Circle K shows up for West Coast Swing one night. But her initial claustrophobia gives way to a feeling of coziness as she begins to settle in.
With the added accountability of being a small-town resident, she finds herself changing her behavior, including by returning her shopping carts, adjusting her response to cat calls, and toning down her driving habits. Something begins to shift inside, and her sarcastic inner monologue quiets down.
The story details the author's love affair with dance, from her first salsa class at age 18 to her subsequent adventures around the world, including a steamy bachata in Barcelona; smooth "On 2" salsa in New York; and a 2 a.m. tango with a taxi driver on a Buenos Aires sidewalk. As a new studio owner, she watches her students fall in love with dance and discover the same pleasures she has found on the dance floor: connection, community, belonging, self-expression, and joy.
Thai Iced Tea & Rhinestones is a love letter to dancing, the City of Grants Pass, and the Guy with the Sideburns who started it all.
