After years of imitating her dad's artistic style, eighteen-year-old Maisie throws away everything familiar in hopes of crafting her own voice. But when an attack on her family's portrait shop brings past hurts to light, Maisie wonders if ?finding herself? might lie closer to home than she realized. All eighteen-year-old Maisie Clark wants to do is leave her tiny town in upstate New York. Crescent Valley is home to Glenna's, the family-run portrait shop she loves more than anything. But after years of imitating her dad's artistic style, Maisie fears she will never find her own voice. So, she comes up with a plan: quit working at Glenna's, go to art school in London, and, most importantly, stop painting portraits. If she can't find her voice by the end of the year, she'll give up art entirely. Unfortunately, pushing outside her comfort zone is (surprise!) uncomfortable. Maisie struggles to connect with her eccentric new flatmates, feels farther away from her best friend than ever, and hates every art course she signed up for-especially photography, where her talented but prickly partner, Eli, is not afraid to point out her every mistake on their semester-long project. Maisie is already questioning all her life choices when a crime strikes Glenna's, reopening old family wounds she thought she'd long healed from. It'll take even more discomfort, as well as help from Eli, her older brother, Calum, and his earnest boyfriend, Benji, to confront the layers she's painted over the past. But maybe, just maybe, the keys to finding herself lie closer to home than she realized. AGES: 14 to 18 AUTHOR: Sabrina Kleckner is a teacher by day and an author by early morning and night. Her debut middle grade novel, The Art of Running Away, was a 2023 ALA Rainbow Book List Selection, the 2022 Moonbeam Awards Bronze Medalist in Pre-Teen General Fiction, and a 2022 IPPY Award Silver Medalist in Juvenile Fiction. On her days off, she can be found traveling the world or gushing about her three cats to anyone who will listen. For more information about her books, check out her website (www.sabrinakleckner.com) or her Instagram (@sabkleckner).
