Shortlisted for the Independent Bookshop Week Book Award, Children’s category

YA stars Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan join forces to break readers' hearts in this contemporary story of star-cross'd lovers.

Jess would never have looked twice at Nicu if her friends hadn't left her in the lurch. Nicu is all big eyes and ill-fitting clothes, eager as a puppy, even when they're picking up litter in the park for community service. He's so not her type. Appearances matter to Jess. She's got a lot to hide.

Nicu thinks Jess is beautiful. His dad brought Nicu and his mum here for a better life, but now all they talk about is going back home to find Nicu a wife. The last thing Nicu wants is to get married. He wants to get educated, do better, stay here in England. But his dad's fists are the most powerful force in Nicu's life, and in the end, he'll have to do what his dad wants.

As Nicu and Jess get closer, their secrets come to the surface like bruises. The only safe place they have is with each other. But they can't be together, forever, and stay safe – can they?

An extraordinary, high-impact, high-emotion collaboration between two stars of YA. Perfect for fans of Patrick Ness, Malorie Blackman, Rainbow Rowell and John Green.

This is a verse novel, consummately crafted, where the position of each word on the page is as important as its meaning… a beautiful tale of love, hope and survival * Guardian *
Complex and original…The outlook may seem bleak, but don’t be put off: this beautifully crafted novel has genuine joy at its heart for the light and hope that friendship can bring in a chaotic, unpredictable world * Observer *
It crams into its two vivid voices ideas about prejudice, immigration, forced marriage, abuse and poverty, and movingly transcends issues to feel universal * Sunday Times *
Extraordinarily gripping * Irish Independent *

Sarah Crossan has lived in Dublin, London and New York, and now lives in Hertfordshire. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Literature before training as an English and Drama teacher at Cambridge University. She received the 2016 CILIP Carnegie Medal for her astonishing novel One, which also won the YA Book Prize, CBI Book of the Year Award and the CliPPA Poetry Award.
http://www.sarahcrossan.com/ @SarahCrossan

Brian Conaghan was born and raised in the Scottish town of Coatbridge but now lives in Dublin. He has a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. For many years Brian worked as a teacher and taught in Scotland, Italy and Ireland. His novels include The Boy Who Made it Rain, published in 2011, When Mr Dog Bites which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal in 2015, attracted both praise and controversy for its honest, moving and humorous depiction of a teenage boy with Tourette's syndrome and The Bombs That Brought Us Together, published in 2016 to critical acclaim.