When the Moon Was Ours

Book excerpt: Winner of the 2016 Tiptree Award Longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Young People's Literature Stonewall Book Award Honor "McLemore dances deftly across genres, uniquely weaving glistening strands of culture, myth, dream, mystery, love, and gender identity to create a tale that resonated to my core. It’s that rare kind of book that you want to read slowly, deliciously, savoring every exquisite sentence." —Laura Resau, Américas Award Winning Author of Red Glass and The Queen of Water At once a lush fairytale, an unforgettable queer romance, and a celebration of trans love, Anna-Marie McLemore's When the Moon Was Ours is a modern classic that proves there is magic in being yourself. To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Samir are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Samir is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. As odd as everyone considers Miel and Samir, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. But now the sisters want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up-- including Samir's past.