From Los Angeles Times Book Prize Award winner and Edgar Award nominee Malla Nunn comes a stunning portrait of a family divided and a powerful story of how friendship saves and heals.

When Amandla wakes up on her fifteenth birthday, she knows it's going to be one of her mother's difficult days. Her mother has had another vision. This one involves Amandla wearing a bedsheet loosely stitched as a dress. An outfit, her mother says, is certain to bring Amandla's father back home, as if he were the prince and this was the fairytale ending their family was destined for. But in truth, Amandla's father has long been gone--since before Amandla was born--and even her mother's memory of him is hazy. In fact, many of her mother's memories from before Amandla was born are hazy. It's just one of the many reasons people in Sugar Town give them strange looks--that and the fact her mother is white and Amandla is Black.

When Amandla finds a mysterious address in the bottom of her mother's handbag along with a large amount of cash, she decides it's finally time to get answers about her mother's life. What she discovers will change the shape and size of her family forever. But with her best friends at her side, Amandla is ready to take on family secrets and the devil himself. These Sugar Town queens are ready to take over the world to expose the hard truths of their lives.

From Los Angeles Times Book Prize Award winner and Edgar Award nominee Malla Nunn comes a stunning portrait of a family divided and a powerful story of how friendship saves and heals. Now in paperback.

Fifteen-year-old Amandla's mother has always been strange. For starters, she's a white woman living in Sugar Town, one of South Africa's infamous shanty towns. She won't tell anyone, not even Amandla, about her past. And she has visions, including ones that promise the return of Amandla's father-as if he were a prince in a fairy tale. But their difficult (even in the best of times) life in Sugar Town is no fairy tale and Amandla knows the truth-her father is long gone. He's just another mystery and missing piece of her mother's past and one of the many reasons people in Sugar Town give them strange looks-that and the fact that Amandla is Black and her mother is not.



Lately her mother has been acting even more strangely, so when Amandla finds a mysterious address at the bottom of her mother's purse along with a large amount of cash, she decides it's finally time to get answers. As she confronts devastating family secrets and even the devil himself, she'll need her best friends at her side, her fellow Sugar Town Queens, if she hopes to help heal a pain that has lasted a generation.

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