Falling

Story

Neesha is afraid. She can’t piece together fragments of a nightmare she has had of a girl falling. It feels long ago and far away, and she starts to feel overwhelmed by the thought of it. Then Sammy appears and they feel drawn to each other but why? Could it be fate? Their connection takes them into the past to try and make sense of the nightmare.

Why we chose it

A young adult story about love across a cultural divide, with its linked stories layered and told by four different, distinctive narrators from different times and places.

Where it came from

Sharon Dogar was born in Oxford and still lives there with her family. One of the jobs she wanted to have when she grew up was a writer, but the list also included a forensic scientist and a game keeper in Africa! She says as a writer her ideas pop up all over the place, sometimes it feels like they come out of thin air.

Where it went next

Readers praise how the book explores themes of different cultures and relationships across cultural divides.

Associated stories

Sharon Doger’s first Young Adult novel was Waves, a coming of age story with themes of love and loss, which was highly acclaimed and longlisted for the Carnegie medal. Annexed is a reimaging of the story of Anne Frank, from the point of view of 16 year old Peter van Pels whose family went into hiding with the Franks. Monsters tells the story of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, and is set in the early years of her relationship with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.