Alyssa Sheinmel

Alyssa Sheinmel brings a New York Times bestselling career in YA fiction to novels that often test how identity changes under grief, secrecy, and uncertainty. Second Star reimagines Peter Pan in a contemporary California surfing community, with Wendy Darling searching for her missing brothers after their damaged surfboards are found. Sheinmel’s own description presents the novel as an oceanside story of love, loss, and lies with an ambiguous touch of magic. Kirkus lists Farrar, Straus and Giroux and observes how the book keeps recognizable elements of J. M. Barrie’s story while giving the setting a distinct culture of beaches, waves, and runaways. Wendy’s encounters with Pete, Belle, and Jas repeatedly blur the boundaries between help and manipulation, memory and wishful thinking. Within Sheinmel’s broader body of YA work, Second Star shows her interest in psychologically unsettled narrators and familiar stories viewed from a less secure angle, inviting readers to question what Wendy knows as closely as they follow what she wants.