As a digital subscriber, you’ll receive unlimited access to Horn Book web exclusives and extensive archives, as well as access to our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database.
To access other site content, visit The Horn Book homepage.
To continue you need an active subscription to hbook.com.
Subscribe now to gain immediate access to everything hbook.com has to offer, as well as our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database, which contains tens of thousands of short, critical reviews of books published in the United States for young people.
Thank you for registering. To have the latest stories delivered to your inbox, select as many free newsletters as you like below.
No thanks. Return to article
288 pp.
| Greenwillow |
May, 2021 |
TradeISBN 978-0-06-269175-0$16.99
|
EbookISBN 978-0-06-269177-4$8.99
(2)
4-6
Eleven-year-old Fiona blames her older sister Arden for their family's move to the "quaint" (fictional) Massachusetts town of Lost Lake. Arden, thirteen, is a successful figure skater, and Fiona feels that her parents value her sister more than her. Finding solace in the town's library, Fiona discovers a mysterious book called The Lost One that tells the story of two sisters from that very town, one of whom disappeared a hundred years ago. The Lost One refuses to stay put, despite Fiona's best efforts, and it routinely disappears from her possession, only to show up at the library again. Together with a boy from Lost Lake, Fiona investigates the history of the two sisters and the legend of the fearsome Searcher that is said to snatch children from the town's woods. What starts as rather a cozy mystery--small town, quirky librarian, strange book--builds up to a spooky denouement with brief but very real peril the intrepid youngsters must face. While the shift in tone from the main text to passages of The Lost One feel jarring at first, the two stories blend together nicely by the end, and readers will be eager to learn the fates of both pairs of sisters. The realistic and picturesque details of Lost Lake capture small-town New England perfectly--but with sinister history lurking behind every old landmark.
Reviewer: Sarah Berman
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
July, 2021