Once was, once wasn’t. This is how all Persian folktales told by Marjan’s Iranian father began. The stories are hazy to 15-year-old Marjan, like many details of her family life. Her father, distant emotionally after her Norwegian American mother’s death, shared little and traveled often—and unusually—for his veterinarian job. Now he’s died and Marjan is struggling both emotionally and financially, trying to figure out what to do with his barely profitable clinic. A mysterious summons to England that brings Marjan face to face with an ancient griffin and the human family that cares for it suddenly begins to illuminate her father’s mysterious work trips, and questions surrounding his death. The shocking discovery that magical creatures secretly exist in our world comes with Marjan’s stunning realization that, like her father, she has the ability to assess their well-being with a physical touch. Marjan is soon drawn into the complex network of people determined to either care for, collect, and/or profit from these creatures’ existence. As she begins to explore her skills and build an understanding of the magical creature ecosystem, she must figure out whom to trust as she not only investigates her father’s death but also tries to figure out how to protect the magical animals from those who would harm them. This imaginative work is a spellbinding mystery adventure that that delivers an action-filled plot, superb world- building, and thoughtful and compelling characters while exploring themes of grief, ethics, friendship, and family. (Age 12 and older)

A New York Times bestseller!
A Morris Award Finalist

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them meets Neil Gaiman in this “striking and heartfelt” (Kirkus Reviews) novel about an Iranian American girl who discovers that her father was secretly a veterinarian to magical creatures—and that she must take up his mantle, despite the many dangers.

Once was, once wasn’t.

So began the stories Marjan’s father told her as a little girl—fables like the story of the girl who sprung a unicorn from a hunter’s snare, or the nomad boy who rescued a baby shirdal. Tales of mythical beasts that filled her with curiosity and wonder.

But Marjan’s not a little girl anymore. In the wake of her father’s sudden death, she is trying to hold it all together: her schoolwork, friendships, and keeping her dad’s shoestring veterinary practice from going under. Then, one day, she receives a visitor who reveals something stunning: Marjan’s father was no ordinary veterinarian. The creatures out of the stories he told her were real—and he traveled the world to care for them. And now that he’s gone, she must take his place.

Marjan steps into a secret world hidden in plain sight, where magical creatures are bought and sold, treasured and trapped. She finds friends she never knew she needed—a charming British boy who grew up with a griffon, a runaway witch seeking magic and home—while trying to hide her double life from her old friends and classmates.

The deeper Marjan gets into treating these animals, the closer she comes to finding who killed her father—and to a shocking truth that will reawaken her sense of wonder and put humans and beasts in the gravest of danger.