Being Toffee

I am not who I say I am,
and Marla isn't who she thinks she is.
I am a girl trying to forget.
She is a woman trying to remember.
Allison has run away from home and with nowhere to live finds herself hiding out in the shed of what she thinks is an abandoned house. But the house isn't empty. An elderly woman named Marla, with dementia, lives there - and she mistakes Allison for an old friend from her past named Toffee.
Allison is used to hiding who she really is, and trying to be what other people want her to be. And so, Toffee is who she becomes. After all, it means she has a place to stay. There are worse places she could be.
But as their bond grows, and Allison discovers how much Marla needs a real friend, she begins to ask herself - where is home? What is a family? And most importantly, who is she, really?

Sarah Crossan is the author of young adult novels One, winner of the Carnegie Medal, Apple and Rain and The Weight of Water, both short-listed, Moonrise, Being Toffee, Breathe, and Resist, as well as Here is the Beehive, a novel for adults. She grew up in Ireland and England, taught English in the United States and continues to promote creative writing in schools, and now lives in Hertfordshire. She is the current Laureate na nÓg (Children's Laureate) of Ireland.
Twitter: @SarahCrossan
Instagram: @SarahCrossanWriter