About this item
A music loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut.Melati Ahmad looks like your typical movie-going, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother's death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.But there are things that Melati can't protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati's arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn's surging power to make it back to the one person she can't risk losing.
About the Author
Hanna Alkaf is an author of unapologetically Malaysian young adult and middle grade books. She has a degree in journalism from Northwestern University, more than ten years of experience in journalism and communications, an out-of-control TBR pile, and two energetic little humans to clothe, feed and entertain all day. She lives near Kuala Lumpur with her family and now spends all of her time making things up as she goes along, both as a writer and as a mom. You can find out more about Hanna and her work at www.hannaalkaf.com or follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@yesitshanna) .
