On an island of sandy beaches, dense jungles, and slumbering volcanoes, colonists seek to apply archaic laws to a new land, bounty hunters stalk the living for the ashes of their funerary pyres, and a smiling tribe is despised by all as traitorous murderers. It is here, in the midst of ancient tensions and new calamity, that two sisters are caught in a deadly web of deceits. Arilou is proclaimed a beautiful prophetess8212;one of the island's precious oracles: a Lost. Hathin, her junior, is her nearly invisible attendant. But neither Arilou nor Hathin is exactly what she seems, and they live a lie that is carefully constructed and jealously guarded. When the sisters are unknowingly drawn into a sinister, island-wide conspiracy, quiet, unobtrusive Hathin must journey beyond all she has ever known of her world8212;and of herself8212;in a desperate attempt to save them both. As the stakes mount and falsehoods unravel, she discovers that the only thing more dangerous than the secret she hides is the truth she must uncover.
Frances Hardinge's compelling fantasy is gorgeously written with a gripping story about two sisters caught up in a political and cultural maelstrom. On the beautiful but dangerous Gullstruck Island, Arilou is supposed to become Lady Lost, a mystic who can leave her body behind. Her sister, Hathin, care for her, but the two seem to be lying about something. Danger abounds in this folkloric outing. Hardinge is also the author of FLY BY NIGHT and WELL WITCHED.
- Genre: Juvenile Fiction
- Subgenre: Science Fiction + Fantasy + Magic, Mysteries + Detective Stories
- Age: 9-12 years
- Publisher: HarperCollins
- Pages: 568
- Language: English
- Format: hardcover
- Release Date: September 1, 2009
- Date Published: September 1, 2009
- Author: Frances Hardinge