Watch Over Me
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Eighteen-year-old Mila has been in the foster system since her mother abandoned her. Now that she’s graduating high school, she has nothing to do and nowhere to call home. So when she gets an offer to work as an intern on the Farm, she readily accepts.
Her main job is to take care of eight-year-old Lee. At first the Farm seems like an idyllic paradise, a remote place on the cliffs with view of the sea far below. But Mila soon realises there’s something more sinister going on. Lee’s recent trauma causes Mila’s own frightening memories to bubble to the surface. And then there are Billy and Liz. What is it they want from her? How much is she willing to give?
Whispered secrets. Sideways glances. A dangerous undertow of violence, complicity, desire, and fear.
Nina LaCour is the award-winning author of four critically acclaimed YA novels: We Are Okay, Hold Still, The Disenchantments and Everything Leads to You. She’s also the co-author of You Know Me Well, written in collaboration with David Levithan. Nina’s novels have been ALA Best Books for Young Adults, and named among the best books of the year by the Boston Globe, Seventeen, Booklist, Bustle, Publishers Weekly and the New York Public Library. Nina is the host of the popular writing podcast, Keeping a Notebook.
'This book is so presentient about the times we suddenly find ourselves in that I could feel the presence of my own ghost as I read it. Every sentence is a gift. Nina LaCour writes an enchanted world in which the resonances come from us, from our own need to mend what’s broken inside us. Watch Over Me is a fairytale for who we are now, showing us a way to live in this world.’ Penni Russon
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mila, 18, is thrilled to leave behind four years of foster care when she is given the opportunity to live and work at a picturesque coastal farm in Northern California whose owners, Terry and Julia, care for adopted children of all ages and bring on interns to share the workload. Mila, haunted by the events that led to her mother's abandoning her, wants desperately to believe that she is "good," and she strives to be a trusted companion and compassionate teacher to her sole student on the farm, nine-year-old Lee. The two bond over their similar histories, made-up fairy tales, and a shared sense of distance from the rest of the close-knit community, including their dislike of the ghosts that inhabit the idyllic, foggy farm. As mysterious gifts that link to Mila's past begin appearing on her doorstep, she confronts memories of childhood trauma, told in short interstitial chapters. Printz Medalist LaCour's (We Are Okay) portrait of a young woman yearning to belong and facing her past while navigating the liminal space between childhood and adulthood brims with tender moments and sensory details. Ages 14 up.
