Natalia Sylvester is the author of Running, her YA debut, as well as two novels for adults, Everyone Knows You Go Home, which won an International Latino Book Award, and Chasing the Sun. Born in Lima, Peru, she grew up in Miami, Central Florida, and South Texas. In Breathe and Count Back from Ten (Clarion Books), Verónica, a Peruvian American teen with hip dysplasia, yearns to become a mermaid at a Central Florida theme park the summer before her senior year. She’s also figuring out her first real boyfriend and how to feel safe in her own body. Verónica has had many surgeries to manage her disability and the best form of rehabilitation is swimming, so she spends hours in the pool – and not just to strengthen her body. She wants to audition for a place at Mermaid Cove, a kitschy underwater attraction in her hometown where professional mermaids perform in giant tanks. Her conservative Peruvian parents would never go for it, and they definitely would never let her be with Alex, her new neighbor. But Verónica decides it’s time to seize control of her life – and that’s when her plans come crashing down, as she learns her parents have been hiding the truth about her own body from her all along.