Simon & Schuster: Flap Copy + Book Marketing

Aarzu All Around: Spec Flap Copy

Aarzu has one rule for herself: never let anyone see her without a cricket ball in her hand.

After the death of her parents, she moves in with her uncle — and inherits his rules along with his roof. Girls don't play cricket. Girls don't run, sweat, or dream of stadiums. Aarzu breaks the rule anyway, in secret, until her sister falls ill and the medical bills pile up faster than she can hide them.

So she cuts her hair, becomes a boy in the eyes of everyone but herself, and takes a job no girl is supposed to want, one that finally lets her play the game she loves, out loud, for the first time.

A win, win right? But disguises don't just hide who you are. They start to reshape who you're becoming.

Aarzu All Around is a coming-of-age story about girlhood, friendship, and the quiet defiance of wanting more than you're allowed to want, one hard-earned run at a time.

Aarzu All Around: Trade/Bookseller Spec Email

Subject: A debut middle-grade novel for readers who love quiet acts of rebellion

Hi [Bookseller Name],

We think Aarzu All Around is going to be one of those books your regulars press into other people's hands.

Aarzu is a girl who loves cricket in a house that doesn't allow it. When her sister gets sick, she cuts her hair, takes a job disguised as a boy, and finally gets to play the game she's always loved, out loud, for the first time. It's a story about a girl refusing the limits placed on her, wrapped in an unforgettable premise.

Early readers are calling it "heartfelt and triumphant" and comparing it to The Turtle of Oman and Amina's Voice for its portrait of girlhood pushing back against what she is told she cannot do.

Galleys are available now. Reply and we'll get one in your hands.

Best,
[Palavi Ahuja / Salaam Reads Imprint]

Aarzu All Around: Spec Instagram Campaign

The Siren and the Star: Spec Flap Copy

Luciana "Lula" Gabroni was born to sing. She isn't sure anymore if that was ever really a gift.

She's chosen for an elite ensemble bound for a prestigious music festival in Venice. It should be the future she's trained for her whole life. Then an attack nearly steals her voice for good. And with it, the girl she thought she was becoming.

In the Conservatory library, she finds Barbara Strozzi. A singer from another century, whose life eerily echoes her own. The same stages. The same men who confuse adoration with ownership. The same unbearable weight of being told you're extraordinary before you've had the chance to choose it.

Lula begins to trace her. Page by page, city by city, note by note. Until the distance between them starts to disappear entirely.

Some voices aren't meant to find each other. But some stories refuse to stay buried.

The Siren and the Star is a spellbinding novel-in-verse about legacy, obsession, and the cost of a voice too powerful to silence.

The Siren and the Star: Trade/Bookseller Spec Email

Subject: A novel-in-verse debut booksellers are calling "spellbinding"

Hi [Bookseller Name],

We think The Siren and the Star is going to be a breakout handsell this season, especially for readers who loved Colby Cedar Smith's previous acclaimed novel, Call Me Athena, or Pip Williams' The Dictionary of Lost Words.

Luciana "Lula" Gabroni was born to sing. When an attack nearly steals her voice for good, she finds herself drawn into the story of Barbara Strozzi, a composer from four centuries earlier whose life eerily mirrors her own. As Lula traces Barbara across Venice, the line between their two stories starts to disappear.

Early readers are calling it "spellbinding" and "unlike anything else"