First published 2023
Hazel carries twenty years of guilt over her sister Flora's disappearance. In 1939, the sisters were evacuated from London to escape the war. Fourteen-year-old Hazel created an imaginary world called Whisperwood to comfort five-year-old Flora as they lived with kind strangers in a cottage by the River Thames. Then Flora vanished while playing near the water. Now Hazel works at a London rare bookstore, ready to start fresh at Sotheby's with her boyfriend and Bloomsbury flat. Everything changes when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book titled Whisperwood and the River of Stars. Hazel never shared this private fantasy with anyone. The book's existence suggests Flora might still be alive. Hazel abandons her careful life to search for answers, reopening old wounds and revisiting painful relationships. Her quest threatens her career and future, but she cannot stop. The truth about Flora's fate lies somewhere in the connection between the real book and the imaginary world Hazel created decades ago.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, suspense, mystery, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London, River Thames, Whisperwood
Period: 1939
355 pages · Hardcover · Atria Books