"'There's red on the floor and feathers everywhere. . . . the Sad Man says listen.'
This debut novel is a ghost story, a love story, a murder mystery, a tease. It's also a spider web of magical realism, if you like that sort of thing. Just don't be thrown off by its lyrical title—this new book for young adults will reach up and bite you.'"
Publisher Candlewick
Publication Date 2014-03-25
Section New Hardcover - Fiction / Young Adult / All Staff Suggestions / Suggestions for Kids / Fiction Suggestions / Archived Staff Suggestions / Lauren R.
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9780763665661
Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga.
Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava — in all other ways a normal girl — is born with the wings of a bird. In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naive to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the summer solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo. First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.