Description

"Filled with beautiful and dangerous magic, this book swirls around you like irresistible perfume." --Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop

Perfect for fans of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea and A Drop of Venom, this beautifully-imagined contemporary fantasy standalone will transport readers to an enchanted forest world drawn from Hindu and Buddhist folklore.

Plant-loving Ridhi Kapadia and popular Nilesh Batra were friends once.

Now, seventeen and alone, Ridhi blends natural perfumes, wears flower crowns, and wanders her local woods, listening for the leafy whispers of her beloved trees. Pleading for the yakshas--spirits who protect the environment--to admit her into their forest kingdom, where she knows she truly belongs.

After learning his parents' perfect marriage is a sham and getting suspended from school, a heartsick Nilesh lands at Ridhi's doorstep--the last thing either of them wants. So when a pretty yakshini--nature spirit--offers him the distraction of magic, the same magic he mocked Ridhi for believing in, he jumps at it.

Furious, Ridhi strikes a bargain with a noblewoman of the yaksha court. In exchange for helping restore her reputation, Lady Sulochana will turn Ridhi into the yakshini she yearns to be--and teach her to divine the trees' murmurs.

But when Nilesh ends up trapped in the yakshas' realm, Ridhi realizes the leaves might be telling a disturbing story about the forest her heart is rooted in--one that, even if the two of them band together, threatens to shred the future like so many thorns.

From Andre Norton Nebula Award finalist and Ursula K. Le Guin Prize nominee Shveta Thakrar comes a captivating addition to the cozy fantasy space, where two teens--one a believer of magic who yearns to belong, the other a skeptic searching for an escape--find home in a world beyond their own.