Leyla always believed there was more beyond the shores of Koubreet, the slowly sinking island she calls home, where the written word is a mere legend. When Seagull, her kin, brings her an unusual gemstone, Leyla treats it as an omen, coinciding with her sixteenth birthday, the year when every girl or boy on Koubreet becomes an adult and is supposed to understand the purpose of their life and find true love. Leyla decides to risk her life to find other lands until she discovers books and reading in her dreams. With this discovery comes the hope that her long-held belief might be true. But are books a reality or a figment of Leyla’s night-time imagination? To prove the existence of the legendary books, Leyla embarks on a journey as exhilarating as it is painful – experiencing betrayal and discovering unexpected truths, changing her life and that of her best friend Tars in ways she could have never fathomed. Fighting for the islanders’ access to knowledge and forced to trust what she cannot see, Leyla must discover if in her darkest moment, her dreams come to an end or if she is given wings to go beyond her wildest imagination.
