Unlikely Alliance. A moving, bittersweet YA coming-of-age novel about an abandoned daughter, a fierce female friendship, family secrets, a hidden gift, small-town loyalty, and the slow brave work of learning to grow up

I was ten when my mother walked down the gravel path and onto the ferry. I made her a promise she told me not to keep. "I'll make the diner so good that you'll come back, " I said. She shook her head. "Don't promise things you can't keep." Then she was a shape in the fog. Then a shadow. Then nothing. My name is Maya Castillo, and I kept the promise anyway. Years later I'm still here, in the same salt-stung harbor town, still listening to the ferry horn sound three short blasts morning and night. My father Ben planted hydrangeas because she liked the color, and they're still out front. She never came back. So I run the diner like my whole heart depends on it. I learn every recipe.
I keep the lights on. I tell myself I don't need anyone. And I keep cooking one lie I can't seem to put down. And then there's Chloe. The last person on this island I'd ever choose to need. Because when sabotage threatens everything I've built, and the thing I buried down at the dock starts to rot its way to the surface, the only person who has my back is the girl I swore was my rival. We didn't choose this alliance. We needed it. Now there's a festival to save and a betrayal hiding in a recipe card. There's a testimony neither of us prepared for. There's a gift I've been hiding, the thing I'm actually good at, the thing that isn't the diner at all. And there's a secret about my family that could break the one thing I have left. I told myself that if I just made the diner survive, my mother would be sorry, and I'd never need anyone again. I was wrong about almost everything. Before the season ends, Maya has to decide whether holding on means protecting the lie, or finally letting someone in, and finally letting her mother go. Unlikely Alliance is a moving, bittersweet YA coming-of-age novel about an abandoned daughter, a fierce female friendship, family secrets, a hidden gift, small-town loyalty, and the slow brave work of learning to grow up. Perfect for readers who love coming-of-age stories, enemies-to-friends arcs, found family, complicated mother-daughter bonds, and a hopeful ending worth waiting for.
A standalone YA novel.