When the World was Flat (and we were in love)

By Ingrid Jonach

When sixteen-year-old Lillie Hart meets the gorgeous and mysterious Tom Windsor-Smith for the first time, it’s like fireworks—for her, anyway. Tom looks as if he'd be more interested in watching paint dry; as if he's bored by her and by her small Nebraskan town in general.

But as Lillie begins to break down the walls of his seemingly impenetrable exterior, she starts to suspect that he holds the answers to her reoccurring nightmares and to the impossible memories which keep bubbling to the surface of her mind—memories of the two of them, together and in love.

When she at last learns the truth about their connection, Lillie discovers that Tom's been hiding an earth-shattering secret; a secret that's bigger—and much more terrifying and beautiful—than the both of them. She also discovers that once you finally understand that the world is round, there's no way to make it flat again.

An epic and deeply original sci-fi romance, taking inspiration from Albert Einstein’s theories and the world-bending wonder of true love itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ingrid Jonach
• Release date: Dec 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9780994230515

Ingrid Jonach

Ingrid Jonach is a young adult sci fi romance author of WHEN THE WORLD WAS FLAT (AND WE WERE IN LOVE) and IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS US.

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Other Titles By Ingrid Jonach

In The Beginning There Was Us

Prologue

THE HISTORY YOU and I have grown up with—you know, the one we learn at school, or read on Wikipedia—tells us that Albert Einstein died in the early hours of April 18, 1955 in Princeton Hospital. The internal bleeding could have been stemmed by surgery, but Einstein insisted he’d done his share and that it was his time—one of those moments that sounds made up by Hallmark.

Einstein’s remembered for his work in physics—a class I should have picked up last year, but you know what they say about hindsight. You might have heard of his Theory of Relativity or Quantum Theory. You might have even heard of his unfinished work, the Theory of Everything, which he called an attempt to read the mind of God.

His greatest discovery was E=mc², which I once saw tattooed on the arm of a guy who looked like a high school drop-out. The formula led to the atomic bomb.

There’s another history though—one I heard from Tom.

In this history, Einstein died six years later at his home in New Jersey. He’d come close to death in 1955, before doctors operated on him to fix an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Thanks to this life-saving operation, Einstein isn’t only remembered for his usual theories, but—in this history—he’s also remembered for finishing his Theory of Everything.

The theory led to more than the atomic bomb.

It led to the end of the world.

On the plus side, it also led Tom to Green Grove, and of course, to me—Lillie.

Chapter One

I’M SITTING IN the cafeteria with my best friends Jo and Sylv in the last week of our sophomore year at Green Grove Central High School, scraping Wite-Out off my nails and wondering whether I can stomach the burger on the tray in front of me, when the news breaks about the new guy.

His arrival in our small town is heralded by Melissa Hodge, who heard the news from her father, who heard it from his accountant, who, in turn, had heard it from the guy who pumps gas at the Gas ‘n’ Guzzle.

Green Grove, Nebraska has a population of four thousand, six hundred and something, which results in about two degrees of separation between the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. But during his first summer in Green Grove, Tom’s like the Loch Ness Monster, or some sort of Sasquatch. You know what I mean—seen only by a friend of a friend of a friend.

Melissa has a photo on her cell, but given our social standing, we’re the last to get a look. She snorts through her snobby nose about it whenever we run into her on Main Street, or at the pool over summer, but it ends up being one of those grainy shots they put on the news when some hillbilly spots a UFO. It could be Tom, or it could be Mr Brady, the hermit who lives in the grasslands with the prairie dogs.

Then we hear that Tom’s enrolled in our school and will start at the end of August.

When I look back later, I’ll wonder if I had an inkling that my life was about to go from ordinary to extraordinary. I like to think of it as BT and AT—Before Tom and After Tom. But for now, the only indication’s the reoccurring dream—nightmare, really—that starts a couple of nights after I hear about Tom.

In the first nightmare, I’m murdered in my bed. In my dream, I wake to see a figure standing beside me, silhouetted in the light from the open window. I scream as he—she?—leans towards me, coming so close that I can feel the scratch of what I think is a beard on my cheek.

I’m suddenly racked with cold, as if I’ve been thrown into a bathtub of ice. I scream again and the sound echoes in my ears as if it’s coming from someone else.

I wake with a start and find Deb shaking me with both hands, like a child with a snow globe.

Lillie! Lillie!

I slump against her, breathing in her scent of lavender as she rocks me. It’s been a long time since I’ve allowed her to hold me like this, a long time since we’ve been in the role of mother and daughter. My tears leave damp patches on her nightdress.

Hush. Hush. Hush, she whispers to the rhythm of our rocking.

I continue to repeat the word in my mind after she stops. They say you can talk yourself into anything through repetition, which is the reason they replay TV commercials about a thousand times. They call it the Rule of Repetition.

I manage to calm down after what seems like a few hundred hushes and look up at my mother through swollen eyes. I dreamed I died, I tell her between hiccups.

She rubs my back, her hand catching on my hunched shoulder blades. You know, she says, dreaming about death symbolizes a new beginning. It means the death of the past and the birth of the future.

My mother considers herself a dreamologist, amongst other things.

She leans back and cups my face in her hands, considering me with crinkled eyes. Her mouth curves downward as she wipes my top lip with the flat of her thumb and then shows me a smear of blood—a nosebleed.

My bottom lip quivers. A nosebleed? From a dream?

Poor Lillie, Deb clucks, retrieving a crumpled tissue from her nightdress and holding it to my nose. Let me make you a cup of chamomile tea. I could add valerian, she muses. And I think I have marshmallow root.

My mother makes herbal teas that are akin to dirty dishwater. Her herbologist credentials come from a couch surfer who liked to read tea leaves. I used to tip my tea leaves into the trash before I could be told there was someone tall, dark and handsome in the bottom of my mug.

I’m used to couch surfers and their sideshow talents. When I was about four years old, a guy had me convinced he could pull a handkerchief out of his thumb. He’d stayed for so long that I’d started calling him dad. He’d packed up and left the next day, leaving behind the handkerchief and its rubber thumb.

I drink the tea, but the dreams go on and on—a summer of nightmares. Deb continues to wake me with soothing noises and hot cups of tea, as if it’s medicine.

In another dream, I’m being chased. My sneakers thud on an uneven flagstone path, with dips and crevices that turn my ankles. My breath is short. My heart beat, fast. A row of shrubs line the path on either side and red birds flit in and out of their branches, their wings waving like warning flags.

I look over my shoulder at a figure dressed in black and realize that the scratch of his beard had been the wool of a ski mask.

Like my other dreams, this one ends with a chill that spreads through my body, from my head to my toes. It brings my lungs to a standstill and stops my heart, dead. The sensation follows me into waking hours, blurring the line between my dreams and reality.

Cold. Cold. Cold, I think as I stand in the shower the next morning, shivering under the hot stream of water as I immerse myself in the Rule of Repetition.

Chapter Two

THE DAY BEFORE Tom’s due to start at Green Grove High, I’m hanging out with the girls in my shoebox-sized bedroom, like we do every Sunday.

We’re supposed to be taking photos of Sylv, or at least I am, because she’s going to be the next Gisele Bündchen, but talk has inevitably turned to Tom.

I bet he has a six pack, Sylv says.

Jo snorts. I bet he has two heads. She’s kneeling in front of my bookshelf, alphabetizing my library, which consists of a ton of photography books and a few textbooks from school.

Sylv shrugs. I’d take two heads in this town. Sylv hates her mom for giving birth to her in Green Grove, instead of in a city, like New York or London. How the hell am I supposed to be scouted in Green Grove? she complains as she changes into a silver sequined top with a V-neck that ends at her navel.

Kate Moss was scouted at an airport, I remind her. I love trivia. I spout stuff I hear on second-rate cable shows or read in trashy magazines as if from an encyclopedia.

Great, Sylv drawls. I suppose I should go hang out at the airfield then, in case a model scout arrives on the weekly flight from Newark. She throws a cushion at me, a lime green monstrosity my mother had crocheted when I was a baby. I duck, letting it hit the wall instead.

We all hate Green Grove. For three quarters of the year it’s flat and brown, and for the other quarter, it’s waist deep in snow, which makes its name as misleading as the sign that declares it the gateway to the world-renowned wine-region, the Open Valley. We’re more like a backdoor, or even a cat flap, to the rolling vineyards, which grow, out of place, next to our desert-like town.

Even the flowers in Main Street had died two months after they were planted, despite the thousands of dollars the City Council spent on an irrigation system, against the advice of the community—the community being the Hodge family, principally Mr Hodge. He’s basically the king of Green Grove, given he owns about half of Main Street. I guess that makes his daughter the princess.

Princess Melissa’s in our grade at school. She has shiny black hair to her waist and a spectacular smile without the embarrassment of having had braces like me. Oh, yeah. I’d collected a variety of nicknames over those two years—brace face, metal mouth, train tracks, you name it—not to mention the day Paul Gosling had come at me with an industrial magnet, courtesy of Melissa.

I bet your jaw will drop when I tell you we used to be friends with Melissa—best friends in the case of Sylv. The two of them even got their ears pierced together in third grade without telling their parents. Their friendship had been a constant competition though.

I remember the day Melissa had arrived at school with a new haircut. Sylv had taken a pair of scissors into the bathroom and hacked her own hair above her ears, at least three inches shorter than Melissa’s. Then Sylv had hit puberty early, aged nine and a half, and Melissa had started spreading rumors about her, telling everyone Sylv had gone to second base with Simon Caster.

I wind the film on and snap a shot of Jo. She ducks her head as the flash bounces off the lemon-colored walls.

I had been bitten by the photography bug when I was nine. Deb had gone to a wedding where they’d given the guests disposable cameras, because they were too cheap to hire a professional photographer. She brought hers home unused, which had been her loss and my gain.

Deb hates photography, saying it’s like looking into a mirror, instead of through a window. The purpose of art is to wash the dust of daily life off our souls, she likes to tell me, quoting Picasso.

She’d decided to paint the wedding reception instead, but managed to put down about five brush strokes before moving onto basket weaving, followed by woodcarving.

Her list of unfinished projects is as long as her wavy hair, which flows down to her backside. Not that she has a backside. She’s straight up and down. We both are. But while it’s good, enviable even, for a forty-one year-old to be as thin as an A-list celebrity, for me it’s hell to be flat-chested at sixteen.

I look like a boy, I complain as I snap a shot of myself in the mirror.

At least you look like a hot boy, Jo tells me. I look like an ugly boy—an ugly, fat boy, like Jack O’Lantern.

Jackson Murphy’s an overweight kid we used to know in Elementary. He’d lost his front teeth in second grade like the rest of us, but by fifth grade, there was no evidence of his adult set. He’d been given the nickname Jack O’Lantern, which he’d put up with until he moved with his family to Kentucky, or Texas, or Hawaii, or wherever they went to escape the witch-hunt.

Neither of you look like boys, Sylv says. If you did, I’d have hit on you by now. She points at me. You look like a pixie. I put my hands up to my ears self-consciously, knowing that they’re kind of pointy, but Sylv turns her attention to Jo. And you look like…

A boy, Jo finishes. Just say it. I know it. You know it. Lillie knows it. We all know it!

I have to admit that Jo’s not a girly-girl. Her mom had died of breast cancer when she was three and she’d been raised by her dad—a truck driver.

When Jo was eight, our teacher had to call Child Services because her dad had left her at home by herself for a week while he delivered a load of grain to New Jersey. She spent so much time at my house after that we became like sisters.

We share a love of musicals and know all of the words to all of the songs from movies like Oklahoma, Singing in the Rain, Meet me in St. Louis, Oliver… and the list goes on.

I was actually going to say a bitch, Sylv jokes.

Jo laughs, despite herself.

Now, Sylv says. Do you think we could stop talking about how you girls look and start talking about how I look? Last time I checked, this was my photo shoot. She shakes her shoulder-length hair, which is currently blond with two pink streaks, and strikes a pose that looks pornographic.

While I snap and Sylv poses, Jo continues to tidy my books, followed by my photos, stationary, shoes, clothes, etc. You have so much… crap, she complains.

Thanks, I say sarcastically.

You know what I mean. You have a sweater from when you were, like, five years old on the floor of your closet. She holds it up against herself and peers into the full-length mirror on the back of my door. Hey Sylv, I think this is your size.

Hilarious, Sylv says, rolling her eyes.

And when have you ever skated? Jo asks, picking up a pair of ice skates that used to belong to Deb, proving she’d been into materialism once upon a time, in a land far, far away. The leather’s split and one of the blades is bent. I think you need to do some serious spring cleaning.

I like my crap, I pout. Each pen, each book, each photo represents a moment in time—a memory. I have no need to hop from hobby to hobby like Deb. I know who I am when I look under my bed and see the hundreds of empty film canisters from seven years of photography. Or open my desk drawer and find pens, out of ink from years of homework.

It’s like having a ball of twine to guide me through a maze.

That’s what I love about photography. I can follow the twine back to second grade just by walking into the living room, where Deb’s hung my school photo next to her Feng Shui good fortune coin. Second grade was the year she’d been into Henna. I can tell, because there’s a spray of stars tattooed across my right cheek.

And within an instant, I can revisit the first year Deb had baked a tofu turkey for Thanksgiving and had accidentally used silken tofu, instead of firm. I’d set the camera on a timer and the photo shows us sitting around a table eating a four-bean salad, Jo and her dad included.

You used to be tidy, Jo complains, tossing worn-out sneakers into a tub labeled Shoes. I think this summer’s fried your brain.

The summer? Or the nightmares? I wonder, watching her wrinkle her nose at a sock, before throwing it into my laundry basket.

While I rewind the film in my camera, Sylv points out that if I had a digital camera we’d be able to see the shots now.

If you wanted instant photos, you should have used the booth at the Ezy-Buy, I tell her. I like to develop my own photos in the darkroom at school. I can spend hours in there, stepping through the process until my prints are hanging like a string of birthday cards that measure my life in moments, instead of in years.

As long as you develop the roll before Thanksgiving, Sylv says. I have to be discovered before my dad starts nagging me about the SATs. As if I want to go to college!

As if you could get into college, Jo quips.

Sylv sticks out her tongue, flashing the silver stud in its center. I have contacts.

A one night stand with a college guy isn’t a contact.

What about a one night stand with a college professor?

Jo sticks her fingers in her ears and squeals. Eew!

We’re constantly blocking our ears around Sylv. We’d staged an intervention with her last year after she’d pulled a packet of condoms out of her tote bag during Biology. We’d been learning about the reproductive system when she decided to turn the lesson into a show and tell. It hadn’t gone down well with our teacher, Ms French, who Sylv likes to call Frenchie.

We’d pointed out to Sylv that she was just adding fuel to a fire that had been started by Melissa.

When life gives you sour grapes, you make lemonade, she’d said.

You mean lemons, Jo had responded.

I know you are, you said you are, so what am I?

I have to admit that I’d laughed. Meanwhile, Jo had probably been wondering why we were even friends with Sylv.

Deb has a theory that the three of us are the elements—Water, Earth and Fire.

I’m Water, because, according to Deb, I’m as deep as Big Mac, which is the deepest lake in Nebraska. Jo’s grounded, which makes her Earth. And Sylv burns, out of control, as Fire. She’s more like fireworks though—one of those spinning wheels, shooting out sparks left, right and center, and lighting up Green Grove for me and Jo. Of course, now and then, we get our fingers burned.

Deb told us the reason Melissa drifted to another group of friends is because she’s Air.

An airhead, Jo had corrected.

The girls stay for dinner—veggie burgers and tabbouleh. We’re joined by the latest couch surfer—an artist-slash-hippie called Bison, who talks non-stop about making scented soy candles.

Sylv kicks me under the table whenever he says, Hot wax. That girl could make a sermon sound sexual.

When Bison invites Sylv to make candles with him, I choke on a mouthful of burger. It sticks in my windpipe and Jo has to give me a couple of thumps on the back.

As I suck in a breath, a sudden shiver runs down my spine.

Are you OK? Jo asks.

I think someone just walked over my grave, I say with a cough. Cough. Cough. Cough. Cold. Cold. Cold, I think as a now familiar chill settles in my stomach.

Chapter Three

ON THE MORNING that Tom’s scheduled to start at Green Grove High—otherwise known as T-Day—the constant cold in my stomach is, at least temporarily, replaced by butterflies. I squash them, telling myself I’m being stupid.

I chant the word stupid as I put on mascara and clear lip gloss. At the last minute, I also put the gloss on my cheeks, for a healthy glow. Well, that was moronic. It shines like glitter. I smear it with my hand and now my chin shines too.

Idiot! I scold myself, sticking a washcloth under the faucet. It squeaks as I turn on the water, and the pipes bang inside the wall. Bang! Bang! Bang! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! they seem to shout.

This old house is falling down around our ears. I look at the tiles, cracked and broken on the side of the bath, and then at the rusted drain hole, the chipped basin, the split and rotting windowsill. It’s a dump, like half the houses in Green Grove. They all have this temporary look about them, as if the builders thought no one would live here longer than a couple of years.

I continue to study myself in the mirror after I wipe my chin and decide that I’m wasting my time. Who am I kidding? As if the new guy is going to look twice at me. Just look at my track record. Since my freshman year, there’s been three new additions to our grade at Green Grove High. Two were male and neither has looked in my direction since they set foot in this town. It’s as if I’m invisible to the opposite sex. It could be because girls like Melissa have breasts and I’m as flat as an ironing board.

At least I have clear skin. Jo and Sylv both have spots, no matter how much they squeeze and scrub. They have more color in their complexions though. My skin’s sallow and I have perpetual dark circles under my eyes, like smudged mascara.

I guess I could blame them on waking up at odd hours, gasping for breath like a fish in a bucket—the nightmares are like having sleep apnea—but I was born with dark circles. A guy who dated my mother when I was in Elementary used to call me Panda Eyes.

I tilt my head this way and that to see if they’re highlighted by the fluorescent light that flickers above the mirror. My eyes glint green, my one remarkable feature, but no one calls me Emerald Eyes.

He probably has two heads anyway, I say, mimicking Jo, and then laugh, half at what I’d said and half at the fact that I’d said it out loud.

I’m running about ten minutes late thanks to my primping and preening. Normally, I roll out of bed and pull on a few worn-out clothes. Today, though, I spend at least fifteen minutes selecting a white cheesecloth top to pair with my customary light blue jeans and a pair of gold-colored ballet flats. A couple of large plastic bangles jangle on my wrist.

My clothes come from Tree of Life, one of those stores that sells gemstones and incense. Deb works there part-time and I pull a few shifts here and there, which means I get their clothes discounted or for free when they overstock. I tend to go for the non-hippie-ish items, meaning no tie-dyed dresses or crocheted vests. I do have a pair of hemp shorts though and the cheesecloth top I’m wearing today. That being said, made by hand, as in knitted, stitched or dyed, is non-negotiable when you’re shopping free trade.

I check the clock and realize that Jo’s running late too. We’ve walked to school together rain, hail or shine since kindergarten and you can normally set your watch by her punctuality. When she does arrive, I notice she’s wearing about a gallon of perfume and a skirt.

You have a tear in your tights, I point out. The fact that she even owns a pair of tights, or a skirt, is kind of headline news, but I keep my mouth shut.

Dammit, she curses, looking at the ladder, which runs from her knee to mid-thigh. My only pair too. She pulls at her hem, but she’d have to let it down about five inches to cover the hole. Jo’s no tart, but no one wears a skirt past their knee at Green Grove High, despite the efforts of Principal Turner—otherwise known as Turnip.

Our school has a strict dress code, which no one follows. Heavy make-up’s banned, as are skirts above the knee. For boys, it’s rude T-shirts, sleeveless tops, torn jeans, jewelry and bandanas. Not that there are any gangs in Green Grove, unless you count Melissa and her lapdogs, who we like to call the Mutts.

I find a pair of tights in my dresser and toss them to Jo.

Thanks, she says.

I know well enough to face the wall while she pulls them on. She’s modest, unlike Sylv.

It takes us fifteen minutes on a good day and twenty on a bad day to walk to school. I think it’s going to be a good day until a red bird flies across my path and my legs lock-up as I recall my nightmares.

Look, Jo says. A red crossbill.

I have to laugh, even though my chest is constricted as if by a large rubber band. When did you become an ornithologist? I tease.

We get to school a few minutes before the bell. I can tell that every girl at Green Grove High has added an hour or so to their routine this morning. The corridors smell like tanning lotion and teachers are busy sending students to the bathroom to wipe off eye make-up and lipstick. It’s the routine whenever a new guy comes to our school.

Is he here yet? Sylv asks breathlessly when she meets us at my locker. She’s wearing a white micro miniskirt and black ankle boots. Her sparkly red top has a plunging neckline, which reveals a black lace bra. She’s beyond breaking the dress code—she’s smashing it into

Reviews for When the World was Flat (and we were in love)

[livvvy75 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ok, when I first began this book I was like, there is absolutely no way my rating by the end of this book will be more than three stars. But look what is now? FOUR stars!All I can say is, make sure to get to around the first 15% or so. It became evident to me within the first 3% how much I disliked the characters. The main character (Lillie) had the most immature friends I could imagine. I don't mind it in small doses but it was a little too much. Then there was Tom who I couldn't stand because he was so moody, and I really couldn't understand him. But enough of the bad stuff.Do you know how cool the idea of dimensions is? If you don't, let me tell you now: It's cool. In this fantastic world created by Ingrid Jonach, there is no imagination, just memories of lives in past dimensions. Other versions of yourself can be bad versions of yourself. The sky is the limit. I can't write this review without complimenting the writing. It was so smooth and easy to read. In fact, quite a few points were very engrossing. The plot flow just ran smoothly. After, finishing, I am pretty sure I must have read the last sentence around five times. I was kind of like, what was that? Now I need the sequel because I am very, very curious. Curious is an understatement.Usually, with review books, I tend to steer clear of reviews of the book until I am finished. But having gone from seeing nothing of this book to seeing it a LOT, I was very interested in reading this. 4/5 stars.I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

[emily1s · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sigh.I did a lot of sighing during this book.Sighing for the unrequited love and for the things I saw coming and didn’t really want to happen.This book got into my head. It burrowed itself deep into my subconscious to where I was dreaming about alternative dimensions. Other realities where I would make an opposite decision in my life and completely change the course of my lifetime. There was even a time at work where one of my coworkers said she should have done one thing instead of the other thing she actually did, and all I was thinking was “well, you definitely did in another dimension.” So yeah, I was affected.Ultimately, When the World was Flat (And We Were in Love) is unique. The concept of reincarnation has been done before, but this book switches it up and adds a spark of time traveling! (AWESOME!)Lillie was a great character, although I was once again, sighing, at her utter naiveness. And for a while she did a Bella Swan thing and shut out the rest of the world for lack of a boyfriend.I loved her friends. I liked her mom even though she was a bit off kilter. I like Jackson.I loved Tom. Loved. Tom.And um, Mrs. Jonach is an Australian author, so of course the writing is appealing and delightful.

[clairerousseau · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lillie is your average small-town-Alaskan high-schooler. Crackpot hippie mother not-withstanding, Lillie’s life is pretty normal until she starts dreaming of her own death every night.

Then new guy Tom strolls into school; he’s handsome, rich & British, a swoon-worthy combination if there ever was one.

But he is also strangely familiar, Lillie instinctively knows things about him she couldn’t possibly know. Do they really have some kind of weird connection, or is a simple teenage crush making her read way too much into Tom’s every word or gesture?

The beautiful cover and intriguing title should give you an idea of the lyrical, atmospheric flavour of the book. It doesn’t lack in sass either, with Lillie’s opinions and descriptions rendering the small town and its inhabitants in vivid detail. I was particularly impressed with the expert portrayal of teenagers, which hit just the right notes of frailty, bravado and cruelty in turn. The parade of couchsurfers moving in and out of Lillie’s living room never failed to provide comic relief.

The revelation of a supernatural aspect to the plot came fairly late, allowing the high-school drama to take front and centre stage for the first half of the book. That’s a relatively large portion of the story which is solely dedicated to Lillie’s everyday life, as well as that of her family, friends, frenemies, and even the town.

This early focus allowed the reader to immerse in Green Grove sufficiently to understand exactly how devastating an impact the later reveals could have.

One initially very sympathetic character turns suddenly sinister shortly after the central crux of the story is finally revealed, and the reader feels this twist all the more cruelly for this attention paid the character in question early on.

The lack of a supernatural plot-twist before the mid-point also provided its own little pinch of suspense. There is a certain amount of meta at play; when you pick up a book from a genre publisher, you expect some kind of science-fiction or fantasy element.

Yes, the weird dreams could just be dreams, except the reader knows they’re not. I spent the first half of the book wondering, at the turn of every page, is this next one the page I’ll find out?

By the time Lille finally gets told what is going on, the seasoned genre reader will have probably guessed the most likely answer (I did), but Jonach builds on the beloved sci-fi concept and creates a beautiful, multi-layered hidden fantasy world. There is almost a bit of cognitive dissonance between the high-school drama and high-concept sci-fi portions of the story, but if you enjoy both genres, like I do, you will love both halves equally.

I read this book on holiday and I must say it was close to the perfect summer read for my taste – a fun, witty story, with enough emotional resonance to make me root for a happy ending, none of the unnecessary sap I always dread from romances, and a decent grounding in sci-fi without any arduous info-dump. It feels great sometimes to step back and read a story not about the end of the world, but the tearing apart of someone’s little world, which is just as dramatic when it’s done well.