On a perfectly ordinary school day, something extraordinary happens: a boy with pale skin, lion eyes and a tattered red rucksack walks in. Unable to speak English and seated at the back of the class, Ahmet ‘the refugee kid’ becomes the perfect target for bullies and rumours alike.

But Ahmet has also captured the attention and empathy of a fellow classmate, who will do anything to help him find his family. Even if that involves a plan – or five, and the Queen herself!

Charlie Davis is in pieces. At seventeen, she’s already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget it through cutting; the pain washes out the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. She doesn’t have to think about her father or what happened under the bridge. Her best friend, Ellis, who is gone forever. Or the mother who has nothing left to give her. Kicked out of a special treatment center when her insurance runs out, Charlie finds herself in the bright and wild landscape of Tucson, Arizona, where she begins the unthinkable: the long journey of putting herself back together.