Vial of Tears (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780823446414)

Two sisters become trapped in the underworld--and in the machinations of deities, shapeshifters, and ghouls--in this lush and dangerous Phoenician mythology-inspired fantasy.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Year

Teenage sisters Samira and Rima aren't exactly living the dream. Instead, they live with their maddeningly unreliable mother in a rundown trailer in Michigan. Dad's dead, money's tight, and Mom disappears to gamble for days at a time. So when Sam's grandfather wills her the family valuables--a cache of Lebanese antiquities--she's desperate enough to try pawning them before Mom can.

But she shouldn't. Because one is cursed, forbidden, the burial coin of a forgotten god. Disturbing it condemns her and Rima to the Phoenician underworld, a place of wicked cities, burning forests, poisoned feasts of milk and lemons, and an endless, windless ocean.

Nothing is what it seems. No one is who they say. And down here, the night never ends.

To get home--and to keep her sister safe--Sam will have to outwit beautiful shapeshifters, pose as a royal bride, sail the darkest sea... and maybe kill the god of death himself.

A lush and intensely imaginative novel in which fierce women protect each other from rapacious gods and hungering demons, and in which two tenacious sisters come into their power, Vial of Tears introduces readers to the rich and brilliant mythology of ancient Lebanon.

A Den of Geek Top New YA
A Shelf Awareness Galley Love of the Week Selection


Author: Cristin Bishara
ISBN-10: 0823446417
ISBN-13: 9780823446414
Publisher: Holiday House
Language: English
Published: 10/05/2021
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.75w x 1.20d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2021
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 10/01/2021
Shelf Awareness 10/19/2021
Horn Book Magazine 01/01/2022 pg. 108
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2022 - Superior,Well Above Average