![]() ![]() The way here was through a shimmering door, and Hazel was too busy to see it. She hears a voice nearby in the woods, familiar, but Flora ignores it. No one knows what might happen to her on this adventure or who she might become. She clings to Berry by his worn, furry paw and ventures nearer to the water’s rush, thrilled at her boldness. This enchanting river was-like the apple in the Bible-forbidden.īut Flora doesn’t believe this beautiful, starry river can be dangerous. If she did, she was told, she would never find her way back to Mum or Bridie or their warm cottage in the heather-strewn fields. ![]() Hazel had ordered her not to ever become the river, as they became other woodland creatures, nor should Flora ever drink from the river. Hazel had told Flora that the glinting lights on the river were stars and galaxies, rushing to meet the sea. Hazel refuses to go with Flora to Whisperwood anymore, so what’s she to do but go alone? It’s hers!-not to be abandoned: the glowing castle and the grove of alder, the chattering squirrels and animated trees. She stands and carefully steps closer to the river. Why should she be? Her older sister, Hazel, told her many times that these woodlands belong to them, that the shadowed glade and the sacred sunlit puddles where the canopy of trees opens wide is a safe place meant for the two sisters, created just for them. Then the waters bend and curve, gathering force, bouncing against the stone walls and locks of England until they reach London, where bombs are plummeting to city streets, delivering ruination, where smoldering cathedrals and crushed homes litter the river with their ember and ash.ĭid someone call my name? Flora sits and rubs her eyes. The river surges toward Oxford where students hurry to and from tutors under pinnacled towers standing guard over cobblestone streets. Someone called my name? She glances around the green expanse, at the churning water of the River Thames furrowed with winks and puckers as it nearly overflows its banks, taking to the sea anything or anyone who dares to enter its rush. On a red blanket by the river, six-year-old Flora Lea Linden awakens alone, a dome of blue sky above her and birdsong wild about her. And if you are born knowing, you will find your way through the woodlands to the shimmering doors that lead to the land made just and exactly for you. ![]() Not very long ago and not very far away, there once was and still is an invisible place right here with us. An astonishing twist ultimately reveals the truth in this transporting and refreshingly original novel about the bond between sisters, the complications of conflicted love, and the enduring magic of storytelling. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years?Īs Hazel embarks on a feverish quest, revisiting long-dormant relationships and bravely opening wounds from her past, her career and future hang in the balance. Hazel never told a soul about the imaginary world she created just for Flora. ![]() But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars. With a charming boyfriend and her elegantly timeworn Bloomsbury flat, Hazel’s future seems determined. Twenty years later, Hazel is in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore to a career at Sotheby’s. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, and she carries that guilt into adulthood as a private burden she feels she deserves. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone-a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own.īut the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. When a woman discovers a rare book that has connections to her past, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed. ![]()
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