Alyssa Sheinmel
author
Second Star
A twisty story about love, loss, and lies, this contemporary oceanside adventure is tinged with a touch of dark magic as it follows seventeen-year-old Wendy Darling on a search for her missing brothers. Wendy’s journey leads her to a mysterious hidden cove inhabited by a tribe of renegade surfers, most of them runaways like her brothers.
Wendy is instantly drawn to the cove’s charismatic leader, Pete, but her search also points her toward Pete’s nemesis, the drug-dealing Jas. Enigmatic, dangerous, and handsome, Jas pulls Wendy in even as she’s falling hard for Pete. A radical reinvention of a classic, Second Star is an irresistible summer romance about two young men who have yet to grow up – and the troubled beauty trapped between them.
Praise for Second Star
Second Star is gorgeous: at once sun-soaked and haunted, elegant and strange. As perfect a book about loss, love, and California as I can imagine.
– Anna Godbersen, New York Times bestselling author of The Luxe
This retelling of Peter Pan set in the surfing community makes some of its own magic…An absorbing new look at a familiar tale.
– Kirkus Reviews
A suspenseful and achingly poignant odyssey… The taut drama with its host of well-drawn characters and layers of mystery in the plot will keep readers guessing.
– Booklist
Peter Pan serves as the inspiration for this psychological drama dusted with a touch of magical realism . . . the multiple twists at the end will certainly have readers reconsidering their childhood views of Barrie’s classic.
– The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
Blurring the lines between villains and heroes, truth and (perhaps drug-induced) illusion, Sheinmel offers an intriguing premise and a dramatic portrayal of an unstable, grief-stricken teen.
– Publisher’s Weekly
[A] magical tale about never wanting to grow up.
– School Library Journal