Meet Alaine Beauparlant: she’s a whip-smart aspiring journalist whose revenge-against-the-mean-girls prank goes very awry, and she is sent to live with her posh aunt in her family’s native Haiti to do volunteer work as penance. There, she will uncover family secrets that may or may not be related to a family curse, navigate her fraught (and heartbreaking) relationship with her brilliant journalist mother, and ultimately come to embrace her beautifully rich heritage.

The epistolary-style debut Dear Haiti, Love Alaine [Sept. 3, Inkyard Press], by sister/author dynamic duo Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite, seamlessly weaves both real and reimagined Haitian history and culture with contemporary events via the correspondence of YA’s newest heroine. And Booklist agrees–in their starred review, they rave:

“[The Moulites] deliver a phenomenal coming-of-age story with this stunning novel. The reader is treated to a contemporary story lightly threaded with superstition that refreshingly veers away from the traditional white, western gaze and features a Haitian American, her immigrant family, and the land of her heritage at the fore.”

Dont’t miss your chance to preview Dear Haiti, Love Alaine, available for request on Netgalley!