Long Lost by Jacqueline West

 Jacqueline West is one of those authors that I personally love, but which for some reason just don't click with my audience. Still, that's the benefit of being in a large library consortium, so I have access to books I might not otherwise purchase for my readers!

In some ways, this story is a book-length interpretation of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market, with the same atmospheric and creepy horror and the pervading thread of sisterhood.

Fiona is angry. She's finally gotten a few friends, who get her interest in reading and science, she's finally starting to enjoy school, she's finally fitting in, and her parents uproot their family and move to a small town in the middle of nowhere. It's all because of Arden, whose figure-skating career seems to be the only thing that matters. Fiona furiously resents her older sister and feels helpless to do anything about it, or about her relocation to this unfriendly, insular small town.

When Fiona discovers a mysterious book in the town library, which is housed in an old mansion, she's immediately plunged into a harrowing mystery that absorbs her ever deeper until she finds herself doing - and saying - things she could never have imagined. Will she discover the true fate of the sisters in her story - and what will be the fate of Fiona and Arden? Is the Creeper mythical or does something deadly really lurk in the cemetery and around the town? And will Fiona survive with her mind - and heart - intact as she is dragged back in time into the heart of a mysterious disappearance and the mystery surrounding another pair of angry sisters long ago?

This is a book that I will put away all my practical, adult feelings to just sink into and enjoy. Whatever I think about families sacrificing everything for one child's interests or the trope of the "library" which is really a small town museum, West's rich and haunting writing makes this the perfect book to curl up with on a hot summer's day and just enjoy.

Verdict: My audience tends to prefer either straight-up horror or more action and adventure with less atmosphere, but I thoroughly enjoyed this vibrant story that takes the reader straight into the atmosphere of a small town with a long-lost mystery, a creepy undertone, and the struggle between to very different sisters.

ISBN: 9780062691750; Published May 2021 by Greenwillow; Borrowed from another library in my consortium