The Turnaway Girls

Delphernia Undersea wants to sing. But everyone on Blightsend knows music belongs to the Masters -- and girls with singing throats are swallowed by the sea.

On the strange, stormy island of Blightsend, twelve-year-old Delphernia Undersea has spent her whole life in the cloister of turnaway girls, hidden from sea and sky by a dome of stone and the laws of the island. Outside, the Masters play their music. Inside, the turnaway girls silently make that music into gold. Making shimmer, Mother Nine calls it. But Delphernia can't make shimmer. She would rather sing than stay silent. When a Master who doesn't act like a Master comes to the skydoor, it's a chance for Delphernia to leave the cloister. Outside the stone dome, the sea breathes like a wild beast, the sky watches with stars like eyes, and even the gardens have claws. Outside, secrets fall silent in halls without sound. And outside, Delphernia is caught -- between the island's sinister Custodian and its mysterious Childer-Queen. Between a poem-speaking prince and a girl who feels like freedom. And in a debut that glimmers with hope and beauty, freedom -- to sing, to change, to live -- is precisely what's at stake.

Author: Hayley Chewins
Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
Published: 09/19/2018
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.50w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780763697921

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 4.5
Point Value: 6
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 503696 / Turnaway Girls


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2018 pg. 120
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 10/01/2018
Publishers Weekly 11/12/2018
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2019 - Recommended, Satisfactory

About the Author
Hayley Chewins grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, in a house full of books. A published poet, she studied classical voice before switching to a degree in English literature. The Turnaway Girls is her first novel. Hayley Chewins lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.