A Girl Can Dream

Love story and un-love story intertwine in the brand-new thriller-romance from the globally bestseller author of The One Memory of Flora Banks, Emily Barr.

Venice, 2024

Hazel is on a spontaneous holiday with her stepbrother, Enzo, and best friend, Phoebe. They have just helped Hazel escape her increasingly destructive relationship with her older boyfriend, and have come away to celebrate her being her again.
In the dreamy Italian sunshine, Hazel is managing to relax, to stop looking over her shoulder in case Freddie has followed her here. But there’s a girl she keeps seeing in the city. A girl with beautiful eyes. And whenever Hazel sees her and their eyes meet, something strange seems to happen - de ja vu, at first, and then even stranger things that make her wonder if she’s really in Venice at all . . .

England, 2022

Hazel goes to see an up-and-coming local band with Enzo and some friends. She locks eyes with the lead singer, Freddie, during a song, and he finds her afterwards and slips her his number. She’s not even 16. He is ten years older. She knows it’s stupid. She didn’t even think it was boys she was into.
Things with Freddie start wonderfully - flowers, dates, he even writes a song about her. It’s everything a girl could dream of. Until it’s absolutely not . . .

Review

Original plot and charming protagonist . . . Her [Emily's] page-turning talents are put to good use as the reader accompanies a brave teenager on a journey to discover who she really is. ― Irish Times on The One Memory of Flora Banks

Mesmerizing, electric, and achingly lovely . . . One of the best YA novels I've read in a very long time ― Jennifer Niven on The One Memory of Flora Banks

If you like dark fiction you'll devour it ― Heat - on The Truth and Lies of Ella Black

A thoroughly enjoyable love story ― The Times

About the Author

THE ONE MEMORY OF FLORA BANKS published in 2017 was Emily Barr's first novel for young adults and was a global hit, publishing in 27 languages. Before that, she worked as a journalist in London but always hankered after a quiet room and a book to write. She went travelling for a year, which gave her an idea for a novel set in the world of backpackers in Asia. This became BACKPACK, an adult thriller which won the WH Smith New Talent Award, and she has since written eleven more adult novels published in the UK and around the world. She lives in Cornwall with her husband and their children.