Love, death, hope ... the island will change their lives forever. From the bestselling David Almond, author of SKELLIG, and now with fantastic illustrations by the award-winning David Litchfield.

Louise has travelled with her father to the island every year since she can remember - it's the place her mother loved best of all.

The arrival of Hassan changes everything. Louise is restless and yearning for independence; meanwhile, the fiercely free and self-reliant Hassan seems to know the island from long ago as if it were his home from birth.

Hassan is an acrobat, maybe a sorcerer, possibly a source of great danger. The wild boys who call the island their home want to cast him out.

The forces of love, death and hope move Louise and Hassan together. The island will change their lives forever.

David Almond is the author of many beloved and prize-winning books for children and teenagers. His best known work, Skellig, won the Whitbread Children's Award and the Carnegie Medal and has been widely adapted for stage and screen. He has also won the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the world's most prestigious prize for children's authors. In 2021, David was awarded an OBE for services to literature.

'There really is nobody quite like Almond writing in children's or adult's fiction today.' The Times