The Season of Wild Poppies

From critically acclaimed writer and journalist, Amir Ahmadi Arian, comes a breathtaking YA about the horrors of war, the mysteries hidden within families, and the love that blooms in unexpected places.

For fifteen-year-old Yashar, war is something that happens on TV.

It belongs to news headlines and Hollywood movies, not to his quiet life in Ahvaz, in southern Iran. But in September 1980, Iraq invades, and suddenly his hometown is at the heart of the battlefield. As his family rushes to fortify their home, Yashar stumbles across a hidden suitcase. Inside, he finds a stack of drawings by another child, kept alongside his own childhood drawings. Has his mother been keeping the memory of a sibling he never knew? And if so, what became of this other child?

Yashar confides in Nilou, his childhood friend newly returned to Ahvaz. Together they search for answers, and their bond deepens into a fierce first love. While bombs fall and school life fractures, the drawings reveal a trail of clues. The missing child was obsessed with Tintin, using comics to map their world in secret codes. Decoding their art, Yashar and Nilou begin to uncover a darker history: the sibling may have crossed paths with a notorious serial killer, and may still be alive.

For readers of Ruta Sepetys and Khaled Hosseini, Amir Ahmadi Arian's The Season of Wild Poppies is a deeply thrilling, heart-rending novel.