For fans of ARU SHAH and Hayao Miyazaki’s LAPUTA, CASTLE IN THE SKY, this middle-grade novel welcomes you to an immersive Thai fantasy where twelve-year-old best friends, Sofia and Cara, explore the boundaries of family, friendship, and how to be strong in a world that wants to use you.

Five-foot-eight and only in the seventh grade, Sofia Luana is used to being bullied in her Colorado school. After her parents suddenly decide to move to California, Sofia’s only hope is her best friend, Cara Felicity, who says her family’s moving to California, too.

On their plane ride halfway across the country, Sofia and Cara see a magical door in the clouds where the girls soon find themselves in a new land filled with a shapeshifting octopus, winged warriors, and the exiled sorceress, Muet, starting a war to take the throne.

With her best friend, Sofia must learn to embrace her royal lineage, figure out who can be trusted, and find the courage to make her own decisions to end the war—or else Muet and her Night Army will extinguish Sofia’s skylight forever.