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THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS
By: K.A. Merson
A Novel
Ballantine Books
May 2025
On Sale: May 13, 2025
Featuring: Arizona
368 pages
ISBN: 0593874528
EAN: 9780593874523
Kindle: B0DD36PV6G
Hardcover / e-Book
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Mystery Amateur Sleuth | Mystery Woman Sleuth
Seventeen-year-old Arizona’s favorite things include cryptography, geocaching, the writings of Jules Verne—and exploring the Sierra Nevadas on her Russian Ural motorcycle, with her dog Mojo riding shotgun in his sidecar.
She’s not, in other words, your average teenager.
So when she learns her mother’s been kidnapped and finds a cryptic test accompanying the ransom note, she’s not just horrified—but electrified. Solving puzzles and cracking codes are what she does best, and she knows exactly how to tackle the challenge the kidnappers are dangling in front of her.
What she doesn’t yet realize is that she’s been enlisted in a treasure hunt, on the trail of an occult, centuries-old secret her father supposedly took to his grave. And if the prize at the end is real, it could shake the world.
As Arizona chases the truth through fiendish puzzles and ancient texts, unearthing clues both buried underground and hiding in plain sight in the Western landscape, she’s forced to navigate the outside world in ways she never has before—and begins to forge connections she never dreamed she could.
Featuring an indomitable young heroine and a plot that ingeniously weaves together real facts into a treasure hunt of epic proportions, The Language of the Birds is an irresistibly quirky, endlessly surprising adventure that will leave readers wondering where the truth ends and fiction begins.
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