• Age: 13 to 18
• Grade: 8 to 12

A spellbinding story about chasing love, fighting family, losing friends and starting all over again, from the internationally acclaimed Lisa Moore.

Sixteen-year-old Flannery Malone has it bad. She’s been in love with Tyrone O’Rourke since the days she still believed in Santa Claus. But Tyrone has grown from a dorky kid into an outlaw graffiti artist, the rebel-with-a-cause of Flannery’s dreams, literally too cool for school.

Which is a problem, since he and Flannery are partners for the entrepreneurship class that she needs to graduate. And Tyrone’s vanishing act may have darker causes than she realizes.

Tyrone isn’t Flannery’s only problem. Her mother, Miranda, can’t pay the heating bills, let alone buy Flannery’s biology book. Her little brother, Felix, is careening out of control. And her best-friend-since-forever, Amber, has fallen for a guy who is making her forget all about the things she’s always cared most about — Flannery included — leading Amber down a dark and dangerous path of her own.

When Flannery decides to make a love potion for her entrepreneurship project, rumors that it actually works go viral, and she suddenly has a hot commodity on her hands. But a series of shattering events makes her realize that real-life love is far more potent — and potentially damaging — than any fairy-tale prescription.

Written in Lisa Moore’s exuberant and inimitable style, Flannery is by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, empowering and harrowing — often all on the same page. It is a novel whose spell no reader will be able to resist.

Lisa Moore is the acclaimed author of the novels Caught, February, and Alligator. Caught was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize and is now a major CBC television series starring Allan Hawco. February won CBC’s Canada Reads competition, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and was named a New Yorker Best Book of the Year and a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book. Alligator was a finalist for the Scotia Bank Giller Prize, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada and the Caribbean region), and was a national bestseller. Her story collection Open was a finalist for the Scotia Bank Giller Prize and a national bestseller. Her most recent work is a collection of short stories called Something for Everyone. Lisa lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Lisa Moore's profile page

• Long-listed, International Dublin Literary Award
• Short-listed, Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award
• Commended, A Quill & Quire Kids' Book of the Year
• Commended, OLA Best Bets Top Ten
• Commended, CBC Best Books of 2016
• Commended, CCBC Best Books for Children and Teens
• Commended, NP99: The Best Books of the Year

An engaging story and strong purchase with some valuable lessons about love, friendship, and growing up.

School Library Journal

More than a teen romance, this poignant, intimate novel is a thoughtful, mature exploration of the joys — and hazards — of love of all sorts.

Horn Book

Flannery is perfectly planted in the sweet spot of YA writing. It’s good for the smart literary teen and the teen who plows through salacious bestsellers. It’s also for the adult who wants to remember how hard and how beautiful it was to be a teenager. This one is highly recommended.

Quill & Quire

Smart, bold, heartbreaking — sophisticated teen readers will be wowed.

Kirkus Reviews

Older teens will identify closely with brave, vulnerable Flannery in her witty, edgy coming-of-age narrative.

Shelf Awareness