Promotional Information

This second novel from Emily Barr is a race-against time thriller and a true coming-of-age story. It explores the highs and lows of first love, all set under a blazing Rio sun.

About the Author

THE ONE MEMORY OF FLORA BANKS published in 2017 was Emily Barr's first novel for young adults and was a global hit, publishing in 27 languages. Before that, she worked as a journalist in London but always hankered after a quiet room and a book to write. She went travelling for a year, which gave her an idea for a novel set in the world of backpackers in Asia. This became BACKPACK, an adult thriller which won the WH Smith New Talent Award, and she has since written eleven more adult novels published in the UK and around the world. She lives in Cornwall with her husband and their children.

Reviews

Barr is superb at evoking the heightened emotions of adolescence: the exhilarating thrill of first love, the intensity of fear and rage at adults' deception and the need to discover one's own identity.
With disturbing undertones, vivid characters and authentic dialogue, this is a worthy successor to her wonderful debut, The One Memory of Flora Banks * Daily Mail *
Evoking Ella's intoxicating new surroundings while skewering the facile assumptions of "poverty tourism", Barr's second YA novel is a fast-paced, dramatic search for answers to the secrets of the self * Guardian *
Colourful setting and pacy plot. If you like dark fiction you'll devour it * Heat *
Emily Barr already proved she could hit all the right teen-fiction notes in last year's The One Memory of Flora Banks. This taps the same vein. Ella's parents are doting to the point of smothering but they don't know about the dark and twisty part of her that threatens to destroy everything * i *