Ever since Roxana’s mum died in a car accident four years ago, her father hasn’t been the same. When he accepts a job in America, it seems to offer a second chance at happiness. Roxana’s older sister, Azar, stays in England, while she and her younger brother, Ehsan, travel with Dad—although in just six weeks, Roxana will head to London for university. Since childhood, Roxana has struggled with sleep paralysis; it intensified after Mum’s death. Newly arrived in Colorado, she has a recurring nightmare in which she and a beautiful, golden-haired boy are hunted down and die tragically—this time, they’re tied up and burned at the stake. Terrifyingly, her dreams are manifesting into reality. Not only are Roxana’s wrists bruised when she awakens, as if they’d been bound together, but she later encounters Zain, an Iranian American teen who looks exactly like the boy from her dreams. When Roxana witnesses Zain killing a creature in an alley, her life changes irrevocably. She learns about a hidden family secret, the centurieslong bond between herself and Zain—and their impending doom. Unfortunately, Zain’s character is too lightly developed to make the love story convincing. Uneven pacing and worldbuilding that feels forced and rushed result in a densely packed stand-alone novel that would have benefitted from being expanded into a duology.
