A mind-bending, time-warp, action-packed new middle-grade trilogy from #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants author Ann Brashares and her brother Ben Brashares! Six well-meaning kids change the course of history in the worst possible way, in a thrilling new story that asks what life would be like today had Germany won World War II. Welcome to WESTFALLEN!
WESTFALLEN
by Ann Brashares and Ben Brashares
Simon & Schuster, September 2024
(via Writers House)
Henry, Frances, and Lukas are neighbours, and they used to be best friends. But in middle school Frances became too cool, Lukas got into baseball, and Henry just felt left behind. When a dead gerbil brings them together again for a pet funeral, the three ex-friends make a mind-blowing discovery: a radio, buried in Henry’s backyard, that allows them to talk to another group of kids in the same town . . . in the same backyard . . . eighty years in the past.
The kids in 1944 want to know about the future: are there jetpacks? Laser guns? Is there teleportation? Most of all, they want to know about the outcome of the world war their dad and brothers are fighting in. Henry is cautious—he’s seen movies about what happens when you disrupt the fabric of time—but figures there’s no harm in telling them a little bit. And, at first, nothing changes—well, nothing big, anyway.
Until one conversation between the new friends changes history in the biggest way possible. And now it’s up to Henry, Frances, and Lukas to change it back.
Ann Brashares is the author of the global phenomenon Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, as well as several other novels. Before becoming a writer, she was a student of philosophy, a receptionist, an editor, a ghostwriter, and, briefly, the copresident of a small media company.
Ben Brashares is the author of Being Edie Is Hard Today and The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection. He holds an MFA in creative writing and has worked at and written for several magazines, including Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, and Entertainment Weekly.
Senka lives between the realm of the Living and the realm of the Dead. As ward to Charon, the Ferryer of the Underworld, Senka assists in ferrying recently departed souls across the river and into their afterlife. Although Charon has taught her many Rules about life in the Underworld, there is much he avoids telling her. Though she doesn’t understand why the Rules are so important, she listens—she must heed them in order to become an official Ferryer, just like Charon.
Fourteen-year-old Aria Loveridge lives at the Resthaven Home for Dreamslingers, a safe haven for children born with a genetic mutation that transports them to a powerfully magical realm while they sleep. But this magic can be unpredictable—even deadly. After all, it was only ten years ago when members of the Royal League of Dreamslingers caused the Great Outburst—a tragedy that killed hundreds of people, including Aria’s mom.