In this tense and brilliant tale from the national bestselling author of The Death of Bees, a young boy on a small Scottish island, where everyone knows everything about everyone else, discovers that a secret can be a dangerous thing.

Eleven-year-old Michael Murray is the best at two things: hacky sack and keeping secrets. His family thinks he's too young to hear grown-up stuff, but he listens at doors—it's the only way to find

"Carmen Boullosa is, in my opinion, a true master."—Alvaro Mutis

Part bildungsroman, part ghost story, part revenge novel, Before tells the story of a woman who returns to the landscape of her childhood to overcome the fear that held her captive as a girl. This powerful exploration of the path to womanhood and lost innocence won Mexico's two most prestigious literary prizes.

Carmen Boullosa, one of Mexico's leading