Damselfly

Think of a multicultural Lord of the Flies with the addition of girls. Their survival is in their own hands…

Samantha Mishra opens her eyes and discovers she’s alone and injured in the thick of a jungle. She has no idea where she is, or what happened to the plane taking her and the rest of the Drake Rosemont fencing team across the Pacific for a tournament. Once Sam connects with her best friend, Mel, and they find the others, they set up shelter and hope for rescue. But as the days pass, the teens realize they’re on their own, stranded on an island with a mysterious presence that taunts and threatens them. Soon Sam and her companions discover they need to survive more than the jungle… they need to survive each other.

This taut novel, with a setting evocative of Lord of the Flies, is by turns cinematic and intimate, and always thought-provoking.

“Chandra Prasad gives us a terrifying, modern-day Lord of the Flies, rendered in exquisite and exacting prose. A brave take on teen cruelty, identity, mixed race experience, class, and survival.” — Marina Budhos, author of Ask Me No Questions

“Who are we when we are only accountable to ourselves? This bold, deft novel exposes how fragile the world we inhabit really is and what it might take for us to survive.” — Neela Vaswani, co-author of Same Sun Here

“Prasad breathes fresh life into this fusion of Lost, Prep, Gossip Girl, and William Golding’s classic.” — Jake Halpern, author of Fame Junkies and Dormia

“If Lord of the Flies met Gossip Girl and spawned a first-rate book, filled with adventure and moving, surprising struggles against Nature and our nature, Damselfly would be it.” —Amy Bloom, author of Away: A Novel

“Smart, surprising, and utterly engrossing.” — Charlotte Rogan, author of The Lifeboat: A Novel