The Land of Lost Things: the Top Ten Bestseller and highly anticipated follow up to The Book of Lost Things
£9.50
*** THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER ***
Twice upon a time – for that is how some stories should continue . . .
‘Book lovers and fans of John Connolly will not be disappointed by this remarkable standalone novel’ INDEPENDENT
‘Will wholly satisfy fans of The Book of Lost Things. The tale is fully immersed in the otherworld of fantasy and fairytale… the novel is also a quietly profound journey to the heart of the human condition’ IRISH TIMES
‘This can be read as a standalone, and may well prove as popular as its predecessor’ GUARDIAN
Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. She is a body without a spirit, a stolen child. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud to Phoebe the fairy stories she loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world.
But it is hard to keep faith, so very hard.
Now an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, and to journey – to a land coloured by the memories of Ceres’s childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father, to a land of witches and dryads, giants and mandrakes; to a land where old enemies are watching, and waiting.
To the Land of Lost Things.
For anyone who loved THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS and for all readers who enjoy dark, beautifully written fables that explore the heart of the human condition: love, loyalty and sacrifice.
‘A unique and compelling journey’ DAILY MAIL
‘Dark and beautiful’ HEAT
‘Captivating… he’s certainly spun more gold with The Land of Lost Things’ SUNDAY BUSINESS POST
‘A rollicking adventure… Connolly is such a skilled storyteller that you can’t help being swept along’ IRISH INDEPENDENT
‘This dark fairy tale, sequel to The Book of Lost Things (2006), speaks volumes about a mother’s devotion […] A feat of imagination’ KIRKUS
‘I’ve been waiting for this book for over 15 years and it is everything I hoped it would be and more. Simply breathtaking’ MARK BILLINGHAM
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Additional information
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton (7 Sept. 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 3602 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 413 pages |
| Page numbers source ISBN | 1529391814 |
by Billo
Absolutely breathtaking, I cannot prairie enough this wonderful book.
by V. O’Regan
“‘Twice upon a time – for that is how some stories should continue – there was a mother whose daughter was stolen from her.” – ‘The Land of Lost Things’ by John Connolly.
This is Connolly’s long anticipated follow-up to his 2006 ‘The Book of Lost Things’. I quickly realised that I was enjoying it very much. For an immersive experience I combined reading with its unabridged audiobook edition, narrated by Lucy Paterson.
The lead character is Ceres whose eight-year-old daughter, Phoebe, is in a coma following a car accident. Ceres reads aloud the fairy stories that Phoebe loves, hoping that they might call her back to this world.
After a time Phoebe is transferred to Lantern House, outside of Bletchley. It is a charitable care facility exclusively for children with a specialisation in brain injuries. We learn that the charity had been set up by David, who was the young protagonist of ‘The Book of Lost Things’. We also learn of his life following those events.
When Ceres explores David’s dilapidated house in the hospital grounds she enters the same fantastical world that he had decades before. It is a land that is influenced by Ceres’s childhood memories and the folklore beloved of her father. A land of witches and dryads, of giants and the Fae. A land where an old enemy waits and watches.
While there a few fairytales told to Ceres, the focus is more on her journey through the Land and her encounters with various people and creatures. She meets up with the Huntsman, who played a major role in ‘The Book of Lost Things’. They had great chemistry with plenty of banter. I especially enjoyed their encounter with a rather feisty Rapunzel.
Each chapter is headed with an obscure word and its definition. Most are from Old English though there’s a sprinkling from other eras and regions. This added an extra layer to the narrative.
Ceres seemed a suitable name for the lead character given it is the name of the Roman fertility goddess whose daughter Proserpina had been stolen by Pluto and carried off to the Underworld.
With respect to the narration, Lucy Paterson is a well established voice actor with over a hundred audiobook titles listed as well as voicing video games and conventional acting credits. She has a beautiful, rich voice and I felt that she was a perfect choice to read this book. She drew me deeply into the story.
Overall, I found ‘The Land of Lost Things’ a wonderful book and a testimony to John Connolly’s skills as a storyteller. It was funny in parts, moving in others; full of wisdom, brimming with imaginative scenes and well realised characters. Definitely one of my top books of 2023.
Highly recommended.
by Monika A.
Ceres is a woman in her early thirties. She’s a single mum to an 8-year-old Phoebe, who is in a coma with a brain injury, after being hit by a car.
Phoebe is transferred to Buckinghamshire, so she can receive care in a facility for young people with brain trauma. Ceres accompanies her and she sits by her daughter’s bedside, reading to her their favourite fairy tale book.
Next to the facility, there is an old, crumbling house. Its former resident, a writer who wrote The Book of Lost Things, has been missing for a number of years.
The house seems to be calling to Ceres. When she steps inside, she’s transported to another world, where she turns sixteen again, much to her annoyance and displease.
She is in the world of The Book of the Lost Things, where she meets the witches, harpies, a dryad, Spirit of the Stream, the Fae, and the ominous Crooked Man.
What a splendid tale! It’s full of wonder, enchantment, good versus evil – all the classical elements of a fairy tale.
Ceres is such a great character, who changes into a strong woman once more as the tale progresses. I chuckled so much at Ceres’s encounter with Rapunzel, what a moment in the story!
I grew up reading the fairy tales by the Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Andersen. I was so looking forward to this book and I wasn’t disappointed.
I definitely recommend this!
by Grace
I would have preferred the old gang.
This book is an oddity although totally worthy of Connelly. I was going to stop reading it after the first chapter but stayed intrigued. Wouldn’t though read another one like this. Bring back Charlie Parker etc.
by christina oneill
I am still reading it so can’t give an accurate answer.
by milne
This was a different style of story but I did enjoy it.
by Whispering Stories
The Land of Lost Things is the sequel to The Book of Lost Things which was released in 2006. I haven’t read the first book, nor any other works by the author, but given that The Land of Lost Things is more of a related book than a direct sequel I didn’t feel I needed to, however, after enjoying this read I will have to pick it up at some point.
The story begins with a young girl lying in a coma in hospital. She has been asleep for months and her worried mother Ceres sits at her bedside. Given the girl’s status, the hospital wants to move her to a place that can look after her better, a place that would see her mother returning to the cottage she grew up in.
On the new hospital grounds is a property that once belonged to an author who vanished many years ago and Ceres discovers a copy of the author’s fairy tales which spikes her interest in the author’s life and so she sets out to discover more but ends up in his fantasy world.
What I love most about The Land of Lost Things is how perfectly normal and abnormal it is. The plot starts off with the helpless feeling of a mother who loves her daughter so much yet her daughter is currently just like a doll to her. Ceres is struggling. She has no one to turn to, although part of her likes being alone. Then we have the strangeness of the book as we move into the realms of witches, fairies, fae, etc. Both parts are perfectly blended.
If you have read the first book and enjoyed it then you need to read this one. If you like weird, yet poignant books that have plenty of life lessons, then you need to read this book. It is a bit of a slow-burner but totally fixating. I adored the book from beginning to end. Yes, it took me a while to get through it but it was nice to take in the plot slowly and savour every moment.
*I received a free copy of this book, which I voluntarily reviewed