A party in the hills of northern Italy descends into an outlandish rite of passage in this beguiling and intense international sensation.

'SPELLBINDING' Vincenzo Latronico, author of Perfection

It's the beginning of summer. Isa M., a literature student, is throwing a party at her family's villa on the outskirts of Turin. The music is loud, the drinks are flowing, and the garden is packed with friends - and maybe a few gatecrashers. The only guest who hasn't arrived yet is Ezio, the boy she's falling in love with.

Then an anonymous gift turns up on the kitchen table: a bottle of wine with a card that reads, Unless someone touches the cassowary before one a.m., Ezio dies.

At first it seems like a prank. Except Ezio still isn't answering his phone. And no one's sure who brought the bottle. Or what, exactly, a cassowary is . . .

As the hours tick by - and the undergrads wade further into a heady mix of alcohol, drugs, jealousy, lust and dread - the gravity of the dare sinks in. Shifting among a chorus of partygoers (including a Tarot reader, a would-be philosopher in a parka, a perennial tag-along who's been exiled from the group chat, and a shy artist caught up in the night's seductive chaos), Leonardo San Pietro's debut novel captures the precarity of early adulthood with piercing wit and a generous heart.

'Absolutely gripping - seductive, cerebral, and charged with real danger. I finished it stunned' Stephanie Danler

'I downed this fizzy, bittersweet spritz of a novel in a single gulp' Andrew Ridker