Sarah Crossan & Brian Conaghan introduce 'We Come Apart', a contemporary story of two star-cross'd lovers set in North London.

Find out more: bloomsbury.com/uk/we-come-apart-9781408878859/

YA rising stars Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan have joined forces to break your hearts in this contemporary story of star-cross'd lovers. Watch them introduce the world and characters here.

Jess would never have looked twice at Nicu if her friends hadn't left her in the lurch. Nicu is all big eyes and ill-fitting clothes, eager as a puppy, even when they're picking up litter in the park for community service. He's so not her type. Appearances matter to Jess. She's got a lot to hide.

Nicu thinks Jess is beautiful. His dad brought Nicu and his mum here for a better life, but now all they talk about is going back home to find Nicu a wife. The last thing Nicu wants is to get married. He wants to get educated, do better, stay here in England. But his dad's fists are the most powerful force in Nicu's life, and in the end, he'll have to do what his dad wants.

As Nicu and Jess get closer, their secrets come to the surface like bruises. The only safe place they have is with each other. But they can't be together, forever, and stay safe – can they?

An extraordinary, high-impact, high-emotion collaboration between two award bedecked rising stars of YA.

Sarah Crossan received the 2016 CILIP Carnegie Medal for her astonishing novel One, which also won the YA Book Prize, CBI Book of the Year Award and the CliPPA Poetry Award. Brian Conaghan's powerful debut, When Mr Dog Bites, was shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, Peters Book of the Year and CBI Book of the Year Award and The Bombs That Brought Us Together won the Costa Children’s Book Award 2017.

More information here: bloomsbury.com/uk/we-come-apart-9781408878859/