• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2020 June #1
  *Starred Review* Soraya has always known the story: a girl saved a young woman who was being held captive by a div, a monster. The angry div laid a curse upon the girl so that her firstborn daughter would be poisonous to the touch. That is why Soraya wears gloves and remains sequestered among her rose gardens, hidden from the public, while her twin brother, Sorush, prepares to become shah. As Sorush's wedding approaches, a hero arrives in the palace, one who is said to have performed heroic deeds. Instead of fleeing from Soraya, he seems desperate to save her, and though she has convinced herself that she is content in her isolation, Soraya feels, for the first time, the stirrings of a more dangerous impulse. But in the dungeons of the palace is another div, one who understands more about Soraya's curse than Soraya does herself, and who may carry the key to breaking it—if only Soraya, unmoored by the attraction she feels to both man and demon, can bring herself to trust her. In her sophomore novel, Bashardoust (Girls Made of Snow and Glass, 2017) draws from the myths and religions of her own Persian culture to create a world simmering with magic and treachery where no one is quite what they appear to be. With crystalline, sometimes sensuous prose, she digs into her characters' motivations and manipulations, deftly keeping readers on the hook until the final, stunning turn. Grades 9-12. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.

Melissa Bashardoust received her degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley, where she rediscovered her love for creative writing, children’s literature, and fairy tales and their retellings. She currently lives in Southern California with a cat named Alice and more copies of Jane Eyre than she probably needs. Melissa is the author of Girls Made of Snow and Glass and Girl, Serpent, Thorn.