cover reveal

Best known for her young adult novels Daughter of the Burning City and the Shadow Game series, author Amanda Foody will make her middle grade debut in the spring of 2021 with the whimsical fantasy-adventure The Accidental Apprentice, the first book in the Wilderlore series.

Here’s how Foody’s publisher describes the tale:

The adventure begins when Barclay Thorne, an apprentice to the town’s mushroom farmer, accidentally bonds with a magical Beast. Determined to break his bond and return home, Barclay must journey to find the mysterious town of Lore Keepers, people who have also bonded with Beasts and share their powers. But after making new friends, entering a dangerous apprenticeship exam and even facing the legendary Beast of the Woods, Barclay must make a difficult choice: Return to the home and rules he’s always known, or embrace the adventure awaiting him.

The Accidental Apprentice hits shelves at libraries and bookstores everywhere on March 30, 2021, but BookPage is thrilled to reveal its breathtaking cover below! The cover illustration is by Petur Antonsson, with cover design by Karyn Lee and art direction from Sonia Chaghatzbanian. Be sure to check out our Q&A with Foody and an exclusive excerpt after the reveal.

The Accidental Apprentice is your first middle grade novel, though you've published several YA novels. What drew you to creating a story for younger readers? 
I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, so even though middle grade is not where I got my start professionally, it feels like where I got my start creatively. I was the sort of child who often fantasized myself into the worlds of my favorite stories; I eagerly anticipated my Pokemon adventure when I turned 10 and my Hogwarts letter when I was 11. After writing a few dark and gritty YA worlds, I was eager to try my hand at something just as vast and magical but a touch more lighthearted, and it was so rewarding. It felt like coming home.   

What was most challenging about making the leap from YA to middle grade? What was the most enjoyable? 
My greatest challenge was overcoming the feelings of intimidation that I’d developed about middle grade. It’s been over a decade since I was actively reaching for middle grade books, and when I began drafting this book, I didn’t feel tapped into the current market the way I feel with YA. Truthfully, I still often feel that way. But that reading and learning process has also been the greatest joy! I have discovered many new favorites, such as the Percy Jackson and Nevermoor series.  

Like some of the most beloved works of children's literature, The Accidental Apprentice is a fantasy-adventure story. What kinds of books did you love to read as a kid? What do you hope kids will love about The Accidental Apprentice? 
I was an avid reader as a kid, though I read more broadly than I do now. I loved fantasy series like Septimus Heap, Pendragon, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Harry Potter, but I was also a huge fan of Agatha Christie, Clique and Warriors. I’ve grown more wholly devoted to fantasy as an adult, now that magic so often feels in shorter supply.  

What I personally hope kids will love about The Accidental Apprentice is the world. Between all the magical places to visit and Beasts to bond with, the story is full of imagination fodder, and I would love nothing more than for kids to imagine themselves bonding with their own beastly companions, choosing their own magical apprenticeships and setting off on their own adventures exploring the many sights that the natural world has to offer.  

Barclay, the hero of The Accidental Apprentice, accidentally bonds with a magical Beast. Do you have any pets who may have inspired—or wish they could inspire—any of the Beasts in the book? If they could have a magical power, what do you think it would be? 
I do! I have an orange tabby named Jelly Bean, who is a very rambunctious and friendly kitty. Of the Beasts in the novel, he actually inspired the antics of Mitzi, the baby dragon of Barclay’s closest friend. Mitzi delights in tipping over glasses and nipping at her owner’s ears.  

If Jelly Bean had a magical power, it would be teleportation. Truthfully, I’m not convinced that he doesn’t already have this ability. I feel as though I’m constantly leaving him behind in one part of my apartment only to find him awaiting me in the next room.

Chapter One

Barclay Thorne knew almost all there was to know about mushrooms, and there was a lot to know.

He knew the poisonous ones never grew on trees. He knew the red ones with white spots made warts bubble up between toes, but the white ones with red spots cured warts, welts and pustules of all kinds. He knew which ones made you drowsy or loopy, or could even knock you right dead, if you weren’t careful.

“You’re supposed to be taking notes,” Barclay hissed at Selby. Both boys were apprentices to their town’s highly esteemed mushroom farmer, but because Barclay was older and smarter, he was the one in charge. And he took his position very seriously.

“I c-can’t write and walk at the same time,” Selby blubbered, clutching his quill with his whole fist. Selby was a very pink boy. He had a pink nose and pink cheeks, like a plucked chicken, a resemblance made all the worse by his buzzed blond hair and stocky frame.

In nearly all ways, Barclay was the opposite. Though three years older, he was so short and skinny that Selby would likely outgrow him before next spring. His dark eyes looked like ink smudges on his papery white skin, and his shoulder-length black hair was combed harshly to both sides, slick with oil to make it lie flat.

He didn’t see what was so hard about writing and walking. He doubted it was harder than reading and walking, and Barclay rarely walked anywhere without an open book in his hand.

The two apprentices had been assigned an extremely important mission to find a rare mushroom called the Mourningtide Morel, and for this, they had ventured to the edge of the Woods.

The Woods was no average wood. It was so large that no map could fit all of it, so dangerous that no adventurer dared explore it. It loomed to the west of their town like a great shadow.

The trees along the edge were gray and spooky, their trunks twisted like they’d been wrung out, and their branches reached up like claws toward the overcast sky. It was quiet except for the rustle of decayed leaves and the snaps and cracks of brittle twigs beneath boots. This was the only time to find the Mourningtide Morel: that bleak in-between part of the year after the leaves had all fallen but before the first snow.

Selby stumbled over a tree root and bumped into Barclay’s back.

“It would be easier to write and walk if you weren’t always looking over your shoulder,” Barclay grumbled.

“But we’re so close! You know what Master Pilzmann says about—”

“We haven’t gone in. And the town is right there.” Barclay pointed behind them to Dullshire. Their small town crouched on a knobby hill, encircled by a stone wall covered in spears, like a giant thorn bush. The people were about as friendly as thorn bushes as well. They didn’t like laziness—naps were expressly forbidden. They hated visitors—visitors could mean tax collectors, circus performers, or worse, Lore Keepers.

The only things the people of Dullshire loved were rules. But they only had one rule about the Woods.

Never ever, ever stray inside.

Because the Woods would trick you if you let it, leading you too deep within to find your way out.

And deeper in the Woods lurked the Beasts.

But Barclay, being a dutiful apprentice, would never dream of breaking Dullshire’s most important rule—especially because of how often he got in trouble for accidentally breaking so many little ones. He would do exactly what he’d come here to do, and that was to find the Mourningtide Morel. With or without Selby’s help.

Barclay didn’t understand why Master Pilzmann had insisted Selby come along, or why he’d even taken on a second apprentice in the first place. Dullshire didn’t need two mushroom farmers. And when Master Pilzmann retired, it would be Barclay—not Selby—who took over for him.

After all, Barclay made sure he was the perfect apprentice. He took detailed notes in neat cursive handwriting. He had memorized every mushroom species in The Filosopher’s Field Guide to Finding Fungi volumes one through nine. Even Master Pilzmann himself had claimed that Barclay was the hardest-working boy Dullshire had ever seen.

Which was why Barclay refused to leave the mission empty-handed. He needed to prove to Master Pilzmann that he only needed one apprentice.

“I’m not leaving. Not yet,” Barclay declared, and he continued marching along the tree line.

Selby followed but whimpered as they walked.

As the older apprentice, it was Barclay’s responsibility to comfort Selby—not just to teach him. Selby had never been near the Woods before, and even Barclay, as experienced as he was, still thought the twisted trees looked a bit frightening.

But Barclay found it very hard to be nice to Selby. At home, Selby had many brothers and sisters who cared about him. Parents who looked after him. A room of his own. Barclay had none of those things. He’d had the last one, at least, until Master Pilzmann had let Selby move in.

There was no orphanage in Dullshire. If you wanted supper and a bed for the night, then you had to work for it. So Barclay had grown up working many jobs. He’d stacked books in the library, recorded new rules for the lawmakers, and delivered more spears to the sentries. But even though Barclay had tried to be exceptional at everything, when it came time to choose his apprenticeship, no one in Dullshire had offered him a spot. They were too worried about the futures of their own children to care about a scrappy rule-breaking orphan too.

And so Barclay had knocked on old Master Pilzmann’s door and begged for this apprenticeship, a job no one else wanted. Master Pilzmann had refused, and refused, and refused. But Barclay kept trying until he agreed.

And it had been fine for two years, all until the day that Selby showed up. He still cried and fled back home every chance he got, but Master Pilzmann hadn’t refused him. Not once.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Selby whined to Barclay.

“Not for hours,” Barclay told him.

“It’s freezing.”

“It’s winter. What did you expect?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Didn’t you eat lunch?”

“I fed it to Gustav.”

Gustav was Master Pilzmann’s pet pig, who sniffed out valuable truffles hidden in the ground. Normally, Gustav would join the boys on quests such as these, but Gustav had mysteriously gained weight these past few months, so much weight that waddling exhausted him. He spent all day napping by the fire.

“You’ve been feeding Gustav?” Barclay buried his face in his hands. The mystery of the pig fattening was solved, and once again all of Barclay’s problems proved to be Selby’s fault.

“I don’t like mushrooms!” Selby complained. “They’re slimy, and they taste like dirt!”

Barclay could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Then why are you here?” he shouted. It was the very question that had bothered him for months. He also felt personally offended—he liked mushrooms very much.

Selby’s pink face flushed several shades pinker, and he burst into tears. “My mom said it was a good future for me.”

This seemed to be a lot of pressure to put on an 8-year-old, and for a moment, Barclay did feel rather bad.

But Barclay couldn’t get distracted. If he wanted to keep his apprenticeship, he didn’t have time to feel sorry for anyone but himself. This job was the only thing that ensured Barclay really fit into Dullshire, and Dullshire, however small and rural and rule-obsessed, was Barclay’s home. He would never leave it.

When Barclay had been very small, before his parents had died, he used to dream of adventure. He spent hours imagining the world that existed beyond Dullshire’s prickly walls, other towns and cities and kingdoms in far-flung realms beyond the Woods.

But his parents had loved Dullshire—they wouldn’t want such a life of uncertainty and danger for their only child. And so Barclay refused to disrespect their wishes. He tried to forget about the call of adventure, concentrating instead on how to stay. To belong.

Barclay focused back on the mission, and for the next several minutes, the only sounds were Selby’s teeth chattering, his nose sniffling or his stomach rumbling.

As Barclay knelt to examine a promising fungus, Selby tapped him on the shoulder. “Look. Look.”

Barclay swatted him away and pulled out his forager’s notebook, to compare the sketch to the subject before him. He frowned. He needed a scarlet dome, but this one was clearly crimson. Mushroom foraging was a very precise science.

He dug it out anyway and added it to his basket.

I’ve done it again, Barclay scolded himself, inspecting the dirt underneath his fingernails. Master Pilzmann hated how dirty Barclay got himself, and how his hair looked wild only hours after combing it. Repeat after me, Master Pilzmann would always say when he quoted Dullshire’s lawbook. Filth is prohibited—no dirt, no odor, no potty mouths. Cleanliness is orderliness.

“Barclay!” Selby squeaked, and Barclay finally stood up and turned around.

The grass between them and Dullshire was alive, with dozens—no, hundreds—of tiny, glowing white eyes peering at them between the weeds.

The piles of leaves beneath the boys’ boots shuddered and shook as small figures dashed within them. Selby hopped back and forth as though he stood barefoot on hot coals.

“Barclayyyyyyyy,” he wailed.

But Barclay was frozen, his gaze fixed on a single creature perched on a rock. It looked like a mouse, except without a tail and with six curled spikes protruding from its back.

Barclay had seen Beasts before. Sometimes, on breezy autumn days, strong gusts of wind carried glowing insects from the Woods to his town, whose stingers turned your skin swollen and green. He’d spotted Beasts flying in V shapes across the sky, seeking out warmer places for the winter and leaving trails of glittery smoke behind them. Occasionally, more vicious Beasts snuck out from the Woods to break into chicken coops and goat pens for nighttime feasts.

When Barclay was 4 years old, the Legendary Beast who lurked in the Woods, named Gravaldor, had destroyed Dullshire on Midsummer’s Day. Though Barclay had never glimpsed Gravaldor’s face, he remembered how the town walls had crumbled from the force of his roar. Gravaldor had torn roofs off homes with his jaws, sinking fangs into stones as though they were butter. His magic had caused the earth to rupture, making whatever remained of their once flat town now stand on a tilt.

It was thanks to Gravaldor that Barclay was an orphan.

Knowledge of Beasts had since been forbidden in Dullshire. Travelers who spoke of them were turned away from inns, in case they could be Lore Keepers, wretched people who bonded with Beasts and shared their magic. Children who played too close to the Woods were punished. Even the Beast-related books in the library were burned, making the entire subject a mystery.

“I thought the B-beasts stayed in the Woods,” Selby moaned.

“They usually do.”

Barclay had foraged along the edge of the Woods before without ever spotting a Beast.

But Midwinter was only a few weeks away, and like Midsummer, the holiday was known to make Beasts behave strangely.

Barclay took a careful step away from the mouselike creature. He considered reaching into his pocket for the charm he kept to ward off Beasts. But it was already too late for that.

“Don’t panic,” he told Selby. “They’re blocking our way back to town. But if we just think of . . .”

Except Selby didn’t listen. Dropping his notebook and quill behind him, he turned around and shot off.

Into the Woods.

The hundreds of eyes in the grass seemed to blink all at once. Barclay glanced at Dullshire in the distance, his whole body trembling. Selby was gone. Into the Woods. If Barclay could get around the terrible creatures, he could alert the sentries, who protected Dullshire from the Beasts. Selby had parents and a family, after all. The townspeople would grab their pitchforks and go after him.

But before Barclay could take off, one of the mice leaped out of the leaves and landed on Barclay’s boot.

It squeaked.

Barclay screamed.

He shook it off and sprinted after Selby. As soon as Barclay crossed into the trees, the daylight dimmed, swallowed by the knotted branches overhead. The already cold weather went colder, a fine, icy mist prickling against his skin.

Barclay was small for an 11-year-old, which made him an easy target for older kids looking for trouble. They tore pages out of his library books or stole the coins he saved for apple pastries.

If they could catch him.

Because when Barclay ran, even the sheepdogs struggled to keep up. And so he barreled down the forest hills and soon caught up to Selby, who ducked between the gray trees.

The wind blew, and leaves tumbled farther into the Woods, as if dragged by a riptide. The trees bent low, as though pointing Selby deeper, deeper.

“Selby!” Barclay screamed.

His long hair whipped across his face as he ran, quickly growing wild and tangled. The wind seemed to push him forward, like it was trying to carry him off as well.

“Selby, stop!”

Behind him, Barclay had lost sight of the edge. There were only trees and mist in every direction.

We’ve broken the rules, and now we’re going to die, Barclay thought with panic. Even if they escaped the Woods without being eaten by a Beast, what would they tell everyone? Selby and Barclay were both terrible liars.

Then Selby suddenly stopped running. Barclay skidded to a halt and slammed into him, knocking both boys down a thorn-covered hill. They rolled in a tangle of leaves and legs and branches, mushrooms spilling out of their baskets and bouncing down after them. They each screamed until they collided with the base of a fallen tree.

“What were you thinking?” Barclay shouted, shoving Selby off him. “We could’ve broken our necks! And—”

Selby let out a strangled sound and scampered back up the hill.

“What . . . ?” Barclay turned around to see what had scared Selby off, and froze.

On the fallen trunk of a massive tree, there stood a girl.

And on her shoulder, there sat a dragon.

Author photo by Diane Brophy Photography.

Acclaimed author Margarita Engle’s forthcoming young adult novel, Your Heart My Sky, is the story of two teens who fall in love while struggling to survive during one of the darkest periods in Cuban history. Engle, the former National Young People's Poet Laureate, has won countless awards for her writing, including the 2019 NSK Neustadt Prize.

Here's how Engle's publisher describes her latest verse novel:

The people of Cuba are living in el período especial en tiempos de paz, the special period in times of peace. That’s what the government insists that this era must be called, but the reality behind these words is starvation. Liana is struggling to find enough to eat. Yet hunger has also made her brave: She finds the courage to skip a summer of so-called volunteer farm labor, even though she risks government retribution. Nearby, a quiet, handsome boy named Amado also refuses to comply, so he wanders alone, trying to discover rare sources of food. A chance encounter with an enigmatic dog brings Liana and Amado together. United in hope and hunger, they soon discover that their feelings for each other run deep. Love can feed their souls and hearts—but is it enough to withstand el período especial?

Your Heart My Sky will be available on shelves at libraries and bookstores everywhere on March 23, 2021. In the meantime, we’re thrilled to reveal its gorgeous cover, which was illustrated by Gaby D'Alessandro and designed by Rebecca Syracuse, and to share our discussion with Engle about Your Heart My Sky—and an exclusive excerpt from the book.

How did you feel when you saw the cover of Your Heart, My Sky for the first time?
When I first saw this cover, I was thrilled by the expressions on the characters’ faces. They are people I felt I knew so well, and the illustrator captured their wistfulness as well as their hopes. Struggling to survive in a time of unexpected hardships, they remind me of the entire world now, with our own wistfulness for the innocence of a few months ago and our desperate need to remain hopeful. The colors are perfect, too, so tropical and yet gentle. The abundance of fruit makes me aware of the characters’ imaginations. It’s magic realism, a true Caribbean reality.

Your Heart, My Sky takes place during a period in Cuban history commonly referred to as “the special period,” an economic crisis that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, lasted nearly a decade and had an enormous negative impact on the everyday lives of Cubans. What initially drew you to the idea of setting a story in this period?
I returned to Cuba in 1991, after a 31-year absence. The drastic hunger shocked and saddened me. I experienced the surreal survivor’s guilt of possessing a U.S. passport that would allow me to leave, escaping the near-starvation that my cousins were forced to endure. I spent the ’90s traveling often, carrying suitcases filled with food, vitamins and medicine. I wrote about el período especial at that time, but I discovered that most adult readers in the U.S. weren’t interested or didn’t believe me. So now I’ve written about it again, hoping that young readers will be more empathetic and compassionate.

Like many of your books, Your Heart, My Sky is a novel written in verse. Could you recommend some of your favorite poets or poetry titles for readers to explore while they wait for your new book to be published?
A few of the YA verse novelists I admire most are Elizabeth Acevedo, Jacqueline Woodson, Padma Venkatraman and Nikki Grimes. I also hope readers will also give my verse memoirs a try, if they’re interested in my personal experience with Cuban history. Enchanted Air is a verse memoir about my childhood and early teen years, while Soaring Earth is the high school/college companion book.

GLANCE
Liana

The tall boy who gazes at me
is even skinnier than the rest of us.

He’s skeletal but appealing
in a days-on-earth-are-numbered
sort of way.

He must be courageous
to skip la escuela al campo!

As soon as that admiring thought
flashes across my mind, I realize that
I’m brave too.

Sometimes it takes a clear view
          of someone else
before I can see my own
          unexpected self.

MIRROR
Amado

The girl’s curious eyes make me want
to go home and look at myself
in an effort to see what she perceives:
Height.
Emaciation.
Bones barely concealed
by skin, my face the same deep brown
as this old mirror’s scratched
mahogany frame.

The girl has no way to know that I crave
so much more than food—I need freedom
to speak out, demanding my right
to reject silence.

My older brother is already in prison
for the same crime that I plan to commit—
evading the draft by staying away on the day
when I’m ordered to report for military duty.

Our grandfather fought in Bolivia,
our father in Nicaragua and Angola,
enough bloodshed to leave both of us
unwilling to join future battles.

I glare at the mirror.
Wavy patches.
Blurry streaks.
As if I’m already
fading away
in a prison cell.

What if I don’t have the courage
to keep the pact that I made with my brother,
speaking up, explaining to the government
why we need to choose peace?

But this country is not at war right now,
unless you count our constant struggle
against hunger.

Maybe I should let myself be trained to kill,
become a soldier, gun-wielding, violent,
a dangerous stranger, no longer
me.

REFLECTION
Liana

The dog and I crouch,
watching ourselves
in a shallow tide pool,
shimmery bronze faces
rippling as we hover
above pink anemones
and purple sea urchins.

We gobble
odd-shaped creatures
raw, then glance
at ourselves again,
the dog’s hair short and straight,
mine long, wet, and twining
in dark ringlets like tendrils or seaweed.

Our eyes resemble four sleek black planets
floating in the tide pool’s
miniature galaxy.

Do canines understand mirror images,
or can they only recognize themselves
by smell?

I’ll never know, unless I learn
the ancient language of dog songs.

After a while, we rise and climb
the steep, brightly flowered hills of town,
passing old houses with climbing vines
that enclose wide-open windows and doors,
an invitation for the sea breeze, doves,
butterflies, wasps,
perhaps also thieves. . . .

At home in my kitchen,
I check the refrigerator,
finding it empty as usual.

No electricity either.
Just invisible
wishes.

HERDING TEENAGERS
The singing dog

If he can somehow manage to urge them
toward each other, then neither one will feel
so completely alone, and his unusual instincts
tell him that these two are so perfectly
right for each other that if he fails
to meet his natural goal they will wander
like detached spirits, souls just as starved
as bodies. . . .

The last time a singing dog worked at matchmaking
was in the human year 1519, when a violent pirate
named Hernán Cortés had stolen a ship and anchored
on the island’s southern shore,
recruiting all the Spanish men
of Trinidad de Cuba as soldiers,
then seizing all the native Ciboney Taíno men
as enslaved porters for an expedition
of slaughter and conquest, across the western sea
in Aztlán, land of Moctezuma, ruler of Tenochtitlán.

Only women, children, and singing dogs
were left behind in the village of Trinidad,
along with one guard and one prisoner,
a pacifist called Uría, half Ciboney
and half Canary Islander, a poetic scribe
who loved to write
and refused to fight.

A singing dog led a Ciboney girl called Arima
to the little prison, where she freed Uría,
then helped him escape, and showed him
how to thrive in el monte, wild mountains,
dense jungle, her home.

Now this new boy called Amado is peaceful like Uría,
and the girl named Liana is brave like Arima,
so the modern dog’s task is clear—
just guide these two young people until
they accept each other’s companionship.
Some matches are simply
meant to be.

If you lived in another time and place,
you might think of the singing dog as a winged thing:
Eros.
Cupid.
A guardian
who specializes
in love.

Author photo by Marshall W. Johnson

As you might guess from the title, bestselling author Renée Watson's next YA novel, Love Is a Revolution, is a love story—about loving another person, loving your community and, above all, loving yourself. Watson’s 2017 YA novel, Piecing Me Together, received a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Award. Her picture book Harlem's Little Blackbird was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

Here's the official synopsis of Love Is a Revolution from Bloomsbury, Watson's publisher:

When Nala Robertson reluctantly agrees to attend an open mic night for her cousin-sister-friend Imani’s birthday, she finds herself falling in instant love with Tye Brown, the emcee. He’​s perfect, except . . . Tye is an activist and is spending the summer organizing events for the community when Nala would rather watch movies and try out the new seasonal flavors at the local creamery. In order to impress Tye, Nala tells a few tiny lies to have enough in common with him. As they spend more time together, sharing more of themselves, some of those lies get harder to keep up. As Nala falls deeper into her lies and into love, she’ll learn all the ways love is hard and how self-love is revolutionary.

In Love Is a Revolution, plus-size girls are beautiful and catch the attention of hot guys, the popular girl clique celebrates strong friendships between women, and the ultimate love story is not just about romance, but showing radical love to the people in your life—including to yourself.

Pick up Love Is a Revolution from your local bookstore or library on February 2, 2021! In the meantime, you can see its stunning cover, which was illustrated by Alex Cabal, designed by Jeanette Levy and art-directed by Donna Mark, and read a Q&A with Watson and an exclusive excerpt of the book.

How did you feel when you saw the final cover of Love Is a Revolution for the first time?
The cover took my breath away. I love everything about it: Nala’s bold stance, the expression on her face, the brown lipstick, the bright yellow shirt, even her nail polish and bangle bracelets. Every detail was intentional, and I’m very proud of it. I appreciate my editor, Sarah Shumway, who always invites my input and feedback when it comes to covers. So many times in literature, big bodies are erased or portrayed in defeated, downtrodden ways. I am intentional about having girls with big bodies on covers who are happy, content and fashionable. I truly believe that representation matters, and that includes body diversity as well.

Alex Cabal’s art is always vibrant and striking. She did the U.K. edition of What Momma Left Me, and I was thrilled to work with her again for Love is a Revolution.

Could you give us a little introduction to Nala and share where she’s at when readers meet her? What do you hope readers will love about her? Are there any pieces of you in her?
Readers meet Nala right when she’s at the crossroads of figuring out what activism means to her and how she’s going to show up in the world. She’s pretty confident and sure of herself, but still, there are moments when she feels insecure because she fears that she is not “woke” enough. She’s certainly an imperfect character—she exaggerates (and flat-out lies) to get the attention of a boy she has a crush on. She also loves her family fiercely, and I hope readers enjoy her sense of humor and her bold personality.

My temperament is very different from Nala’s, but one thing I do have in common with her is being Jamaican. I’m really excited to share this part of my Jamaican heritage in a book. It’s the first time I’ve written about a Jamaican American family.

Throughout the book, Nala talks about a (fictional) singer she loves. The song lyrics are in the novel, and they are all about loving your body, loving yourself. The lyrics really inspire Nala, and I hope readers are empowered by them, too.

There’s such a need for stories of Black joy. What joys do you hope Love Is a Revolution represents to readers?
Nala understands that while it’s necessary to bring awareness to social issues, it’s equally important to spend quality time with loved ones, to enjoy simple things like listening to your favorite song on repeat or indulging in your favorite dessert. Harlem is the perfect backdrop for this summertime love story, and I really enjoyed the scenes where Nala is carefree, roaming the streets of her neighborhood and hanging out with friends. Even with all that’s happening in our nation with conversations about equity and anti-Blackness, Black youth are still living their everyday lives, still laughing, still dancing, still loving, and I wanted that represented on the page.

Love is a revolution. What an awesome, powerful statement to choose for the title of a book! How did you arrive at it? How does it reflect what you hope readers experience when they read the book?
There’s a scene when Nala’s grandmother tells her, “The most radical thing you can do is love yourself and each other.” After I wrote that sentence, the title came to me. I think the word love gets used so much that we forget how heavy of a word it is, how serious and hard it is. Love is patient, generous, forgiving. It’s not easy to be patient, generous or forgiving. The definition of revolution is “a sudden, radical, or complete change, a fundamental change in the way of thinking about something.” Love—true love, of self, family, neighborhood, romantic partner—changes you, pushes you to be better. Practicing that kind of love will bring about the change so many of us want in our daily lives. That concept is at the heart of the novel.

Imani walks over to us and sits next to me, in the middle of her birthday crew. The lights dim even more, and once it is completely blacked out, there is cheering and clapping. The stage lights are too dark at first, so I can’t really see the person talking. “Good evening, everyone. We’re here tonight to remember Harlem, to honor Harlem, to critique Harlem, to love Harlem . . . we’re here tonight to Inspire Harlem.”

There are shouts and whistles and so much clapping.

Then, finally, the lights rise.

And I see him.

“My name is Tye Brown, and I will be your host for the evening.” While everyone is still clapping, he says, “Tonight’s going to be a special night,” and then I swear he looks at me and says, “Sit back and enjoy.” I almost yell out I will! Oh, I will! but I keep it together and settle into my seat.

I whisper to Imani, “Who is he? I’ve never seen him before.”

“Tye. He’s new,” she says.

And I turn to Sadie and whisper, “I mean, if I had known guys like that were a part of this, maybe I would have joined too.”

Sadie laughs.

“Shh!” Imani scolds us.

I sit back, give my full attention to Tye. He explains what Inspire Harlem is and talks us through how the night will go. Then, his voice gets serious and he says, “Singer and activist Nina Simone said, ‘It’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live.’ This isn’t your typical talent show. Each act has thought about the message in their art, the mission behind their performance.”

A few people clap when he says this.

“This is a supportive, brave space—please only show love for everyone who has the courage to come to the stage,” Tye says. And then, he smiles the most gorgeous smile I have ever seen and says, “Let’s begin.”

I don’t believe in love at first sight. I don’t even know if I believe that there’s such a thing as a soul mate or one true love. But right now, in this moment, I am ready to profess my love for Tye Brown.

OK, fine, I don’t really love him. I don’t know him (yet), but there are some things I know about him in just the first 30 minutes of the talent show and those things, I love.

3 Things I Already Love about Tye Brown

1. I love his dark skin. The way his white shirt contrasts against his deep brown complexion. I love his style. How his shirt has the letters B L A C K across his chest, making him a living poem.

2. I love the way his deep voice bellows out, filling up the space, how his voice is electric shock waves when he needs to amp up the crowd, how it is a warm hug when he welcomes each person to the stage.

3. I love that when the fourth person gets choked up with tears because he can’t remember the lyrics to his rap, Tye comes from back stage and stands next to him, putting his hand on his shoulder. I love how they just stand there for a whole minute and the audience is silent, how Tye asks, “Do you want to start over?” I love how Tye stands there while the boy performs, never leaving his side, bobbing his head and moving to the beat.

Yeah, those are the things I love about Tye. It was definitely worth coming out in the rain tonight.

The next person up is a girl named Gabby. Her hair is pulled back in a neat ponytail, and I can’t tell if the glasses she is wearing are for necessity or fashion. She sings a song she wrote just for this event, and that alone should make her the winner. I feel sorry for the people coming after her.

The next performance is a group of steppers. They have the crowed hyped. By the time they are done, I think maybe they might beat Gabby. But if they do, it’ll be close. I completely tune out during the next act. A girl is singing some type of Heal-the-World song, and I am bored and barely listening to her. It’s not that she can’t sing—the song is just corny. To me anyway. All I am thinking about is when will Tye be coming back to the stage. But once the girl stops singing, the lights come up for a short intermission.

Most people rush to the bathrooms. I walk over to the snack table—I want to get something to drink and also, I see that Tye is standing over there. I am trying to think of something to say to him, but I can’t even get my mouth to open. Up close he is even more handsome and now I can smell his cologne. I just want to run away and look at him from across the room.

“Enjoying the show?” Tye asks. He is talking to me. To me.

“Um, yes, I—I’m really, yes, I’m enjoying it.” Get it together, Nala Robertson. Come on.

“Are you new to Inspire Harlem?”

“Oh, no. I’m not a part of it. Hi, I’m Nala. Imani is my cousin. She invited me.”

“Oh, Imani? That’s my girl. I’m Tye.” He shakes my hand, which I think is kind of formal, but holding his hand feels like holding silk and I want to hold on to him and never let him go. Tye lets go and fills his water bottle. He takes a long drink.

Say something, Nala. Say something. “Inspire Harlem is a great program. Imani really likes being in it.”

“Yeah. I love it so far. I’m excited about what we’ve planned for this summer. Did Imani tell you about it?”

“No,” I say. But of course she did. I just want to keep talking to him.

“All summer long we’ll be having awareness events—I’m the team leader for our community block party. You should come,” Tye says. I have never heard someone sound so excited about a community service project. Tye steps away from the table because we’re holding the line up. I realize I don’t even have anything in my hand, no water or plate of veggies and dip to play it off like I didn’t just come over here to talk with him. “What about you? What are you up to this summer?” he asks.

“Oh, I’m, um, I’m . . . I volunteer for an organization that offers activities for elderly people in the neighborhood. We do, um, like arts and crafts stuff with them—nothing super important or at the magnitude of Inspire Harlem,” I say. He doesn’t need to know that really, I am just talking about the one time last month when I spent the day at Grandma’s helping her put a puzzle together.

“That’s great that you’re doing that,” Tye says.

“Yeah, some of them don’t have family that come visit and just need to get out of their apartments and do something. We do all kinds of activities with them.”

“Like what?”

“Um, well, like I mentioned, arts and crafts . . . um, knitting. We also have story time, not like kindergarten story time, but I read novels to them and sometimes we just play games and build puzzles.”

All of this is a true-lie.

I’ve done these things with Grandma and her friends. Just not with a formal group of people or with an organization. But I had to say something. I mean, I couldn’t tell him that I’m spending my summer watching Netflix and trying out the summer flavors of ice cream at Sugar Hill Creamery.

Ms. Lori, the director of Inspire Harem, walks over to us. “Tye, we’re just about ready to start the second half,” she says. “Five minutes.”

“Okay.” Tye refills his water bottle one more time. “Nice to meet you, Nala,” he says.

Author photo by Shawnte Sims. Excerpt from Love Is a Revolution used with permission of Bloomsbury Publishing.

Nicole Melleby debuted on the children's literature scene in 2019 with her acclaimed middle grade novel, Hurricane Season, a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Now we're thrilled to reveal the cover of her next book, How to Become a Planet, a heart-wrenching yet joy-filled story about the summer that changes everything for a girl named Pluto.

Here’s the official synopsis of How to Become a Planet from Algonquin, Melleby’s publisher:

For Pluto, summer has always started with a trip to the planetarium. It’s the launch to her favorite season, which also includes visits to the boardwalk arcade, working in her mom’s pizzeria and her best friend Meredith’s birthday party. But this summer, none of that feels possible.

A month before the end of the school year, Pluto’s frightened mom broke down Pluto’s bedroom door. What came next were doctor’s appointments, a diagnosis of depression and a big black hole that still sits on Pluto’s chest, making it too hard to do anything. Pluto can’t explain to her mom why she can’t do the things she used to love. And it isn’t until Pluto’s dad threatens to make her move with him to the city—where he believes his money, in particular, could help—that Pluto becomes desperate enough to do whatever it takes to be the old Pluto again.

She develops a plan and a checklist: If she takes her medication, if she goes to the planetarium with her mom for her birthday, if she successfully finishes her summer school work with her tutor, if she goes to Meredith’s birthday party . . . if she does all the things that “normal” Pluto would do, she can stay with her mom in Jersey. But it takes a new therapist, a new tutor, and a new (and cute) friend with a checklist and plan of her own for Pluto to learn that there is no old and new Pluto. There’s just her.

Pick up a copy of How to Become a Planet from your local bookstore or library on May 25, 2021. In the meantime, you can see the incredible cover of How to Become a Planet, which was created by David Curtis, and read a Q&A with Melleby and an exclusive excerpt from the book. Just scroll down!

What was it like to see finished cover of How to Become a Planet for the first time?
First and foremost, I have never been so excited to have the letter O in my name before! David's art is stunning; the first time I saw the cover I didn't even know where to look first. The colors, the planets, Pluto-as-Pluto! This is probably the smallest thing, but I also immediately was drawn to Pluto's little flipflops and the way her toe is curved to hold it on her foot! I seriously couldn't have asked for a better cover. It's gorgeous and absolutely something that would have pulled me to a book when I was young and browsing the shelves at a bookstore.

Was How to Become a Planet the working title of this novel all the way through the creative process for you?
This was the first of the three of my published books for which the working title actually ended up being the finished title, and it came about in kind of a boring but amusing way: When I started writing Pluto's story, I knew that I wanted the main character to have depression, and I knew that I wanted her name to be Pluto. When I was a kid, Pluto-the-planet was still a planet, and while I knew it's not considered one anymore, I didn't really know why, so I Googled it to find out. I typed into the search bar: "How to become a planet." It all kind of clicked into place from there.

Like your previous books, Hurricane Season and In the Role of Brie Hutchens, How to Become a Planet is rooted in the experience of an authentic and nuanced female protagonist. Could you introduce us to Pluto and where she's at when readers meet her? Are there any pieces of you in here?
At the start of the novel, Pluto has just gotten a diagnosis for depression and anxiety. The summer is just beginning, but she hasn't been to school in over a month; she hasn't been texting with her friends in just as long; she's pretty much shut herself down. Now that it's summer—and her mom has a pizzeria on the boardwalk to run, and Pluto is now on medication—her mom isn't letting her isolate herself anymore. It's a struggle for them both, and Pluto can't help but compare how last summer (and all the summers before it) started and felt with how it feels now. And she feels kind of helpless because of it; she doesn't know how to be her old self again.

My second book, In the Role of Brie Hutchens, was probably my most personal book: I put a lot of myself into Brie, which is always challenging and hits different emotionally while writing. While I can absolutely empathize with Pluto, and while I wanted to explore summer from a Jersey beach kid's perspective (which was my life growing up), Pluto-the-person is very different, personality-wise, from me. She makes choices I wouldn't; she's gentle in ways I'm, well, not; and I've never been a big science buff (I actually had to do a LOT of astronomy research for this book!).

What are some things you love about writing middle grade books and writing for middle-grade readers?
I write very purposely about mental illness and LGBTQ+ characters, and I love being able to connect with my middle-grade readers about that. I think that, with mental illness especially, people tend to treat it like an adult issue, but it's not, and I want my readers (and my LGBTQ+ readers especially) to know that I see them and that they aren't alone. I've done school visits where kids come right up to me, open and honest in ways I couldn't imagine at that age, and they tell me exactly what it is they love about my work—why it's important to them. And while I will always say yes, I write books for the kid I used to be, I mostly write books for the kids who need them now—who need much different things than I did and who are so, so excited that there's a place for them on the shelves.

As a fellow self-avowed Jersey girl, I have to ask you about the New Jersey-ness of Pluto's story. What are some things you love about New Jersey that people who've never lived or visited there might not know about? How do they manifest in How to Become a Planet?
There was a poem in the Asbury Park Press about growing up on the Jersey shore that I heard when I was a kid that started with the line, "Beach kids feel no pain. . . ." that's always stuck with me. Obviously that's not true—we felt pain, all of us—but there was still something so magical about spending our days at the water.

I think people tend to think about two things when they hear Jersey Shore: Snooki and the rest of the MTV crew, and the tourist-heavy fancy beaches people drive down to on the weekends between Memorial Day and Labor Day. For us, though, the beaches were—are—home. The Keansburg boardwalk, where Pluto's mom's pizzeria is, was where I went to countless birthday parties, just like Pluto and her best friend Meredith. My dad's first job was at the Olde Heidelberg hot dog joint, which I name-dropped in the book, because it's still there!

That feeling of being a beach kid in the summer is what I wanted for Pluto—even if she can't experience it like she used to, the beach is still home. I think it'll always feel that way for me, too.

Chapter Two

When it finally came after 180 long days, the first day of summer break didn’t matter to Pluto. The countdown she’d made with Meredith still read 34 Days Until Freedom!!! because Pluto hadn’t been to school in over a month. She hadn’t had to worry about end-of-the-year pool parties, or endless have a great summers, or Meredith begging her to just be her friend again.

And, finally, she didn’t need to worry about school calling home, asking where she was, asking when she was coming, making her mom’s voice tremble as she spoke into the phone, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do, either.”

Instead, what Pluto did have to worry about was that her mom was already out of the shower, shuffling around in the bathroom they shared, nearly ready to start the day. The hall light was on, bleeding into Pluto’s bedroom, making the thick purple curtains that blocked out the morning sun null and void. If she had a bedroom door, she would close it to block out the light and the sound of her mom as she hummed while she got dressed.

But Pluto did not have a bedroom door, and hadn’t had a bedroom door for a little over a month now.

Her mom stuck her head in the doorway. “Hey, Shooting Star,” she said, words mumbled as she spoke around the toothbrush in her mouth. “You’re with me today, kid, so start making some moves.”

Pluto and her mom both knew she would not be “making some moves.” Pluto resented the fact her mom even suggested it, that her mom went about her morning as if nothing had changed inside Pluto, as if an endless month in bed could suddenly come to a stop without trouble.

When she didn’t move: “Plu, I’m serious.” As if that made a difference.

Pluto was serious, too. She needed to stay in bed, under her thick purple blanket covered in white little stars. Her mom had picked out the bed set the moment Pluto outgrew the small wooden crib with the solar system mobile. The blanket was warm, and it was soft, and it was not something she was willing that morning, or any other, to give up.

The bed shifted as her mom climbed in, smelling like the Taylor Swift perfume Pluto had bought her for Christmas last year. Her mom’s arms wrapped around Pluto’s middle, holding her close against the scratchy fabric of one of the low-cut tops her mom always wore that Pluto hated. Her mom’s breath tickled her ear. “I don’t want to pay for a sitter, Pluto. I want you to come with me.”

Pluto felt a familiar feeling rise from her stomach up into her throat, one that made her want to scream and cry and argue, if only she weren’t so tired. Tears came anyway. Twelve-year-olds couldn’t stay in bed all day on their own, no matter how much they might need to. If she was older, an adult, she would stay in bed and no one could force her to do anything, a fixed planet around which everything else moved while she ignored it. But for now, Pluto was the moon and her mom was the planet she was forced to orbit.

Even if that meant being pulled out of bed, every inch of her silently protesting, while an invisible rubber band that kept her body strapped down was yanked taut as her mom tugged her into sitting. “There’s my girl,” she said, as Pluto blinked at her slowly. Her mom’s eyes were gray, like clouds during a rainstorm, and while they were always so gentle when they looked at Pluto, they hadn’t wrinkled at the corners with a genuine smile in what felt like forever. That, though, was comforting, because Pluto could not remember the last time she really smiled, either.

“Get dressed,” her mom said simply, as if she wasn’t asking her to do something that required a Herculean effort on Pluto’s part. “I’ll go make you something to eat. It’s the first day of summer, Plu. It’s time to start having fun again.”

She left Pluto alone to fight the urge to curl into herself and sleep. Standing hurt. Looking over at the Challenger book still placed on her desk with the ripped spine hurt. She picked it up, and the cover and first handful of pages slid away from the rest. Even broken, it was heavy in her hand, which was heavy on her arm, which was heavy on her shoulder. Gravity, it seemed, was extra hard on Pluto.

In fairness, gravity had been harder on the Challenger. The shuttle had fallen from the sky before it was even close to orbit. It all happened so quickly, the smoke and the explosion and the destruction. Pluto often wondered about what that moment had been like, the one after everything was okay, but before everything was not okay, where the Challenger and the seven lives on it were somewhere in between, not okay but not not okay.

Pluto called the Hayden Planetarium Astronomy Question and Answer Hotline to ask, once. After a brief moment of absolute silence, the voice on the other end of the phone quickly launched into a detailed account of all the mechanics of why the Challenger didn’t have a successful takeoff, which didn’t answer Pluto’s question at all.

She placed the broken book back on her desk and reached for her phone instead, the one she got for her 10th birthday “just for emergencies” but mostly used to download podcasts and, at the time, text back and forth with Meredith.

There was a notification that one of her favorite astronomy podcasts had a new episode about meteoroids, comets and asteroids waiting to download.

Pluto knew a lot about meteoroids, comets and asteroids already. She knew that when objects speed into Earth’s atmosphere, the heat produces a streak of light from the trail of particles they leave in their wake.

She looked over at her bedroom wall, at the little white specks left in the gray paint from where she’d yanked off the plastic stars one by one a month ago, hearing her favorite podcast narrator in her head: Like an asteroid, Pluto Jean Timoney leaves a trail of her own destruction in her wake.

“Pluto!” her mom called. “Don’t forget your meds!”

The little orange bottles sat right on top of her desk, next to the broken book. Take 1 with food. Take ½ in the morning. Take 1 as needed.

Depression and anxiety. Two words. One brand-new diagnosis.

Author photo courtesy of Elizabeth Welch.

Neal Shusterman is one of the most successful and beloved authors working today. He is best known for his young adult books, which include the bestselling Unwind dystology and the Arc of a Scythe trilogy. Among Shusterman's many honors are a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, a Michael L. Printz Honor and a National Book Award for Young People's Literature. We're thrilled to reveal the cover of his next book, Roxy, a heart-pounding exploration of the true cost of the opioid crisis, which he co-authored with his son Jarrod Shusterman. The two previously partnered on 2018’s bestselling Dry, which was optioned for film after a six-way auction by Paramount before it was even published, and readers have been eagerly awaiting their next collaboration ever since.

Here's the official synopsis of Roxy from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, the Shustermans' publisher:

The freeway is coming.

It will cut the neighborhood in two. Construction has already started, pushing toward this corridor of condemned houses and cracked concrete with the momentum of the inevitable. Yet there you are, in the fifth house on the left, fighting for your life.

Ramey, I.

The victim of the bet between two manufactured gods, Roxy and Addison—Roxicodone and Adderall, the low-level cronies of more illustrious bosses, who more than anything else want to prove their own lethality. The wager—a contest to see who can induce overdose first—is a race to the bottom of a party that has raged since the beginning of time. And you are only human, seduced by the release they bring. Tempted by the control they offer. They are beautiful, and they will give you the world—as long as you promise them forever.

But there are two I. Rameys—Isaac, a soccer player thrown into Roxy’s orbit by a bad fall and a bad doctor and Ivy, his older sister, whose increasing frustration with her untreated ADHD leads her to renew her acquaintance with Addy.

Which one are you?

Pick up a copy of Roxy from your local bookstore or library on Nov. 9, 2021. In the meantime, you can see the stunning cover, which was art directed and designed by Chloë Foglia with artwork by Neil Swaab, and read an exclusive excerpt from the book. Just scroll down!

Chapter 3: Roxy Can’t Contain Herself

I am so hot right now. And everyone knows it. It’s like I own the world. It has no choice but to yield to my gravity.

As I step into the Party, all heads turn, or want to turn, and are fighting the urge. The music hits me first. Loud and rude. It’s not just in your face, but in your blood. The lights flash to hypnotize, and the beat takes over your own, replacing it, forcing you to move to it. We are the pacemakers, and right now I’m the one who sets the rhythm. There’s no better time to be me.

Al greets me at the door, a glass of champagne in each hand. He’s always been the designated greeter, and never misses an arrival. Al’s older than the rest of us, been around longer, but he carries his age well.

“My, my, Roxy, you are looking fine tonight!”

“Are you suggesting that I didn’t last night?”

He chuckles. “My dear, you get more irresistible every day.”

Al slurs his words. It’s almost like an accent, the way he’s perfected that slur. Consonants and vowels spill over one another. Words in a waterfall. He holds out a champagne flute to me, and I take it. It’s how we shake hands here.

“But where’s your plus-one?” Al asks, looking behind me.

“I’m on my own tonight, Al.”

“On your own?” he repeats, as if it were a phrase in some other language. “That’s unfortunate—what will I do with this second glass of champagne?”

I grin. “I’m sure you’ll put it to good use.”

“Indeed, indeed.” Then he leans closer, whispering, “Maybe you could steal a plus-one.” He looks over at a gaggle of revelers, singling out Addison. He’s dressed in conspicuous style, like he belongs to a yacht club that his father owns. All prestige and privilege. But we all know it’s overcompensation for being forever on the periphery. In the Party, but not of the Party.

“Addi’s rather full of himself tonight,” Al says. “He’s held on to his date longer than usual—you should steal her before someone else does.”

“You’re always making trouble, Al.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I do love a little drama.”

Addison is at the bar, intently focused on a young woman, who, in turn, is caught in his hypnotic gaze. He’s selling her on how he’ll make her life so much better. All the things he can help her accomplish, blah, blah, blah. Even now, he’s still going on about his keen ability to focus the distracted. There are moments I admire him for his singularity of purpose. Other times I pity him, because he will never be great like the rest of us. Like me.

Addison and I came up together. Different family lines, but similar circumstances. Born to help others rather than help ourselves. The problem with Addison is that he never outgrew that stifling idealism. I suppose because most of his work is with kids and adolescents, he still holds on to the youthful naïveté of the task he was created for. True, I still do my job when necessary—dulling angry nerve endings on a strictly clinical basis—but it’s such a minor facet of what I’ve become. They label me a killer of pain, but that doesn’t come close to defining me. I’ve found far more entertaining and empowering uses for my skills.

Al, reading my faint grin, says, “Oh, how I love to watch you calculate, Roxy.”

I give him a wink and head off toward Addison. I won’t steal the girl from him—I’m fine being solo tonight. After all, we do have to clear our palate once in a while.

Nonetheless, Addison’s so much fun to tease.

I make my way to the bar, pushing past the sloe-eyed barflies. Al has long since replaced their empty beer bottles with crystalline glasses filled with more elegant, liver-challenging liquids. Martinis heavy on the gin. Aged scotch. Name your poison, and Al will provide it.

I come up in Addison’s blind spot, upstaging him. “Hi, I’m Roxy,” I say to the girl, pulling eye contact. She’s intense and twitchy. Like she’s in the process of being electrocuted but just doesn’t know it yet. Too much of Addison can do that to anyone.

“Hi! I love your dress!” she says. “What color is that?”

“What color do you want it to be?”

Addison turns to me, bristling. “Isn’t there somewhere else you’d rather be, Roxy? Someone else you’d rather grace with your presence?” He looks around. “How about Molly? She looks like she could use a friend right now.”

Molly does look pretty miserable. Dripping wet and crestfallen. “He was in my hands,” I can hear Molly complaining. “I had him—and then some idiot threw me into the pool!”

“Not what I’d call a state of ecstasy,” I quip. Then I smile at the girl Addison has been trying to charm. “Molly’s a whiner—I’m much happier to hang with you two.”

I’m enjoying Addison’s irritation—and for a moment, I do toy with the idea of claiming her as mine . . . but it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Addison’s positively obsessed with one-upmanship. If I lure her away, he’ll never rest until he thinks he’s bested me. Poor Addison. He tries to be like me, but he’s still too deeply mired in the mundane to ever be a player.

And as if to prove it, the crowd parts, and I see a commanding presence coming toward us through the breach. It’s the head of Addison’s family. The undisputed godfather of his line. I take a small step back, knowing this doesn’t concern me.

“Crys . . . is everything to your liking?” says Addison as he sees his boss. I can see Addison deflate, but he does his best to keep up the facade.

From a distance, Crys is small and unassuming, but up close he’s larger than life. Then he becomes intimidating far too quickly. It can be disconcerting for the uninitiated.

“And what do we have here?” Crys says, zeroing in on the girl. He smiles darkly, a sparkling quality about him. Or maybe it’s just the glitter on his fingernails. “Addison, aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Addison leaks a quiet sigh. “Crys, this is . . . This is . . .”

“Catelyn,” the girl reminds him.

“Right. Catelyn.” Addison will forget her name as soon as she’s out of sight. So will I. A benefit of living in the moment.

“Charmed,” Crys says. Then he takes the girl’s slender hand, his fingers closing around hers like a flytrap on a mosquito. “Dance,” Crys says, and pulls her out onto the floor. She doesn’t resist—but even if she did, it wouldn’t matter. Crys always gets his way.

Addison watches them go, pursing his lips, stifling all he wished he could say to his superior. “He could have given me a little more time with her.”

“It’s not his way,” I remind him.

Beneath the flashing lights, Crys and the girl begin their dance. It will not end well for her. Because before the night ends, Crys will pull her into the VIP lounge. Intimate. Deadly. The one place where she’ll get everything she’s ever asked for and a whole lot she didn’t. The VIP lounge is the place where the real business of the Party is done. The girl should consider herself lucky, for Crys is the shining jewel of his line. You can’t trade up any higher than that.

Addison shakes his head. “I really don’t like Crys’s style. I wish I had your boss.”

“No you don’t.”

“Are you kidding me? Hiro never leaves the back office. He lets you bring your plus-ones to him when you’re good and ready.”

I don’t argue with him. No one can know what it’s like to be on someone else’s chain.

“Are you going back out to find someone fresh?” I ask him.

“Why? Just to have them stolen again?”

“Maybe the Party just isn’t for you, Addison.” And although I mean it as a sincere suggestion from a friend, he takes it as a jab.

“Things are always changing, Roxy. Crys won’t always be the head of my line. There’s room for someone smart to move up the ladder.”

I could almost laugh, but I spare him my derision. He gets enough of that from his upline. “You mean someone smart like you?”

“It’s possible.”

“But you’ve never even brought someone to the VIP lounge. You’ve never been with them to the end. That’s not who you are.”

He glowers at me. “Just because I haven’t doesn’t mean that I won’t,” he says, and strides off, indignant.

After he’s gone, I step out onto the deck for some air. The club is high above everything, giving it a spectacular view of the world below—all those city lights. Any city—every city—and here, those lights are always twinkling, because it’s always night. The date might change, but the scene is the same. The bar never closes. The DJ never stops spinning one song into another. This place exists at that golden moment when the bass drops.

I join Al, who’s taking a moment too, standing at the railing, looking down on all there is. The turmoil and excitement. The winds that both lift and shred.

“So many parties down there,” I say.

“There’s only one Party,” Al points out. “The rest are but a faint reflection of this one. People can feel it, reach for it, but can’t find it. Not without an invitation.”

And then I hear a voice to my left. “Do you ever wish we could do better?”

I turn to see a slight figure wearing a tie-dye dress and a vague expression. Around her neck hangs a heavy diamond necklace completely out of sync with her style. If you can even call it style.

“Do better?” says Al, amused by the thought. “How so, Lucy?”

“You know,” Lucy says, as if it’s obvious. “Find what we were meant to be. Transcend all of this.”

“Right,” says Al, still smirking. “Good luck with that.”

“We are what we are, Lucy,” I say, shutting her down. “That won’t change, so you might as well embrace it.”

“Well,” she says, “It’s nice to dream.” Then she goes back inside, spreading her arms wide and careening side to side, like she suddenly decided she was an airplane.

“I never liked her,” Al says. “There’s something terribly off-putting about her eyes.” Then he goes back in as well to greet newcomers and freshen everyone’s drink.

I linger, looking out over the endless array of lights.

Do you ever wish we could do better?

The question rankles me. I am better. At the peak of my game. Loved by those who matter and hated by those who don’t, because they wish they were me.

Addison might be bitter, but not me. It’s time for me to get back out there and bag a new one. I’m ready for my next plus-one.

Excerpt from Roxy © 2021 Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman. Reprinted with permission of Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.