Lucha of the Night Forest

Informationen zum Autor Tehlor Mejia Klappentext An edge-of-your-seat fantasy about a girl who will do anything to protect her sister—even if it means striking a dangerous bargain. Dark forces, forgotten magic, and a heart-stopping queer romance make this young adult novel a must-read. A scorned god. A mysterious acolyte. A forgetting drug. A dangerous forest. One girl caught between the freedom she always wanted and a sister she can't bear to leave behind. Under the cover of the Night Forest, will Lucha be able to step into her own power...or will she be consumed by it? This gorgeous and fast-paced fantasy novel from acclaimed author Tehlor Mejia is brimming with adventure, peril, romance, and family bonds—and asks what it means for a teen girl to become fully herself. Leseprobe 1 Robado was a night place, and tonight Lucha Moya was glad of it. In night places, no one looked twice at a girl like her. Even one with a long knife strapped to her belt. In the south ward, at the very tip of the city, the streets were already filling with workers ready to celebrate the end of a grueling day. Revelry wasn’t Lucha’s purpose tonight, but the crowd served her needs nonetheless. She slipped in among the bodies, moving north, trusting that her expression would deter conversation if her knife didn’t. She had no friends to worry about offending. None in the south ward, and none in this entire cursed city. But no one came to the Scar—­named for its utterly barren land—­to make friends. In fact, no one came here at all. You were born here, you died here, and you lamented your rotten luck every day in between. Lucha lamented her own as she fought her way out of the neighborhood she called home. The long, windowless manufacturing buildings with dilapidated worker housing crowded in alongside them. The narrow tail of land pushing right up to the bank of the blighted salt river. Too many bodies, Lucha thought. Not enough space to breathe. But that was how it had always been. If you wanted air, you had to pay for it. And the price was too high for most. She stayed to the center of the road despite the crush, avoiding the river. She’d always been repelled by its expanse of murky nothingness. The salt that leached into the soil and killed everything living for a mile in any direction. The tang of it tainted the air, too. It warped the pressed wood-­pulp walls of every structure, making gaps for the dark humors of the forest to steal in . . . Enough, Lucha chastised herself. Plenty of monsters you can see in this world, no sense worrying about the ones you have to imagine. Lucha knew the monsters of Robado as well as anyone—­she’d lived here as far back as her memory stretched. In a larger unit with windows until she was nine. That hadn’t been quite as bad. But then her father had died, and everything had changed: their household income cut by half, her mother growing less and less reliable in her grief. They climbed down the housing ladder one rung at a time. Ever closer to the river. Beginning again, and again, and again . . . But none of the units or sectors of the south ward Lucha had lived in had been remarkable. There was only one remarkable thing about Robado, and it came into view as Lucha turned onto the stone-­paved road heading north. The Bosque de la Noche was nothing but a massive, dark shape on any map she’d ever seen. The southern border was always defined by the curve of the river penning it in. But the forest itself extended to the northern edge of the page, staining it with solid ink, giving the impression the mapmaker’s brush had simply gone on until it could go no farther. No one knew what was on the other side—­or if there even was one. Lucha’s steps slowed without her permission, her eyes drawn as always to the trees. Everyone else in this place seemed to ...

Product details

• Authors: Tehlor Mejia, Tehlor Kay Mejia
• Publisher: Random House Childrens Books US
• Languages: English
• Age Recommendation: from age 12
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 09.04.2024
• EAN: 9780593378397
• ISBN: 978-0-593-37839-7
• No. of pages: 384
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 210 mm x 20 mm
• Subject: Children's and young people's books