May 20, 2024
Eighteen-year-old twins Bianca and Leila Mazanderani have always had difficulty expressing their multicultural
ethnicities in predominantly white Ayer, Va., the rural Appalachian town they’ve lived in their whole lives. While Bianca revels in her Iranian and Argentinian heritage and uses her goth aesthetic and cosmopolitan dreams to shock their conservative neighbors, Leila seeks to marry and “start a family” with her boyfriend; lacking common ground, they barely speak to each other. On the night of their 18th birthday, Leila is visited by a flame-wreathed djinn who has come to collect on a bargain made by their ancestors. Suddenly thrust into a globe-trotting paranormal plot, the twins must reconnect to save their home and survive the onslaught of sinister forces beyond their understanding. Drawing heavily from Zoroastrian and Islamic mythology, Abtahi uses richly detailed prose to spin a tale about identity, heritage, and self-acceptance. Bianca and Leila’s alternating third-person perspectives depict Argentinian and Iranian cultural touchstones that ground the occasionally unfocused plot and deliver a heartwarming story of sisterly connection alongside monsters, romance, and page-turning action. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.