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Book description

WINNER of the 2013 Printz Award.

In darkness I count my blessings like Manman taught me.
One: I am alive.
Two: there is no two.

In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake a boy is trapped beneath the rubble of a ruined hospital: thirsty, terrified and alone.

'Shorty' is a child of the slums, a teenage boy who has seen enough violence to last a lifetime, and who has been inexorably drawn into the world of the gangsters who rule Site Soleil: men who dole out money with one hand and death with the other.

But Shorty has a secret: a flame of revenge that blazes inside him and a burning wish to find the twin sister he lost five years ago. And he is marked. Marked in a way that links him with Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Haitian rebel who two-hundred years ago led the slave revolt and faced down Napoleon to force the French out of Haiti.

As he grows weaker, Shorty relives the journey that took him to the hospital, a bullet wound in his arm. In his visions and memories he hopes to find the strength to survive, and perhaps then Toussaint can find a way to be free . . . Nick Lake is the Editorial Director for fiction for HarperCollins Children's Books and is the author of The Secret Ministry of Frost and Blood Ninja . In Darkness , set in Haiti, is Nick's first book for adults and older teen readers. He discovered Haitian culture as part of his Master's Degree in Linguistics and has since been fascinated by it. Nick lives near Oxford.