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Informationen zum Autor Aisha Saeed (aishasaeed.com) is the author of the New York Times bestseller Amal Unbound , Written in the Stars , Yes No Maybe So (with Becky Albertalli), and Diana and the Island of No Return , and is a Pakistani American writer, teacher, and attorney. She has been featured on MTV, the Huffington Post , NBC and the BBC. As one of the founding members of the We Need Diverse Books Campaign, she is helping change the conversation about representation in literature. Aisha lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and sons. Klappentext Teens Yas and Raf grow from friends to something more in the aftermath of a tragedy in their magical town. Leseprobe Before one Raf The first clear moment Raf recalled from that night was the sound of laughter. Hers. He’d heard her easy laughter a million times before. But that night it made his pulse quicken. Picking up his pace, his feet pressed into the packed sand beneath him. He needed to speak to her. Before he lost his nerve. Faint music from the Moonlight Bay Festival carried over from a distance. He thought he’d glimpsed her slipping away from the celebration. She’d probably grown weary of the crowds. Maybe she’d gone looking for him. How would she react when he finally told her how he felt about her? The golden leaf on his wrist pulsed against his skin. Raf frowned. This birthmark—the one physical difference between the Golub and the locals—only ever warmed in warning, when they’d strayed too far from home. The leaf protects you—it does so at all costs . How many times had Tolki Uncle said this? But right now, he stood mere steps from his forest home. Raf slowed. All thoughts of his leaf vanished. There she was. Yas. Partially obscured by a grove of palmettos, with her back pressed against a tree. She wore a white sundress. The star-shaped necklace resting against her collarbone glinted in the moonlight. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders. Before he could take a step toward her, Raf realized she was not alone. Her boarding-school-raised summer neighbor, Moses, heir to the Holler Candy fortune—came into view. Moses drew closer to her. Laughed. His arms encircled her waist. She looked up at him. Their foreheads touched. Heat flooded Raf’s face. His chest constricted as he stepped back. Why hadn’t Yas told him? They had been best friends ever since his family fell, shivering, from the Golub tree over a decade ago. They shared everything with each other. Didn’t they? But this was a mercy, wasn’t it? If nothing else, he had his answer. He didn’t even have to ask. A sudden jolt of pain burst from his wrist. Electric currents shot through his body. He doubled over. Tears pricked his eyes. The burning grew sharper by the second. White-hot. As if the sun itself had burrowed within his skin. He bit his lip until he tasted blood. Panic bubbling, Raf staggered toward the shoreline. Only then did he see that the ordinarily sleepy pink-and-lavender sea had transformed. Enormous dark waves rose in the distance before crashing to shore. The color of charcoal. Howling winds whipped through his hair. The chaos around him mirrored the chaos within. What was happening? Then came the scream. High-pitched. Wailing. Clenching his jaw, Raf ran until he found himself before the towering specter of Holler Mansion and saw the image that would never leave him for as long as he lived: five-year-old Sammy Holler lying by the shore. His nanny, Melinda, knelt over his frame, her body racked with sobs. Sammy lay facedown on the sand. He didn’t move. As though playing a part in a movie, Raf numbly grabbed his phone. Fingers fumbling, he dialed for an ambulance. He wasn’t sure when Moses and Yas arrived. When the red and white ambulance lights at last flashed in the distance. A team of paramedics lifted Sammy’s limp body ...
