A standalone mystery from a New York Times bestselling, Edgar Award–winning author set in a contemporary world tinged with magic, in which two sisters spend summer vacation in a small town in the shadows of abandoned amusement park that is not what it seems.

 

Ivy and Dahlia Vicar know this summer’s trip to visit friends in Rialto, Missouri, is going to be different from their usual family vacations.

 

Twelve-year-old Dahlia, an artist who lives with anxiety, is looking forward to something new. Rialto, after all, has its own abandoned theme park! But mystery-loving, fourteen-year-old Ivy is struggling with how to be the right kind of big sister to Dahlia, and longs for the way things—especially vacations—were when they were younger.

 

In Rialto, it quickly becomes clear that this vacation will also be different in totally unexpected ways. For one thing, the town stands in the middle of an improbable forest that, according to local legend, swallowed it overnight decades before. Then there are Dahlia’s even more improbable sightings of impossible creatures—a giraffe with antlers and a leopard with wings. And there’s their new friend Remy, whose family inherited the house they’re all staying in from an aunt who left bequests for local friends that Remy must personally distribute.

 

When he enlists Ivy and Dahlia to help deliver these gifts, they find themselves drawn into a mystery going back to the time when Rialto Park was still open. And it begins to seem that, if they are going to help Remy solve it, they will have to find a way to believe in magic.

 

Themes of friendship, family, mental health, and resilience are expertly woven through this magical, richly imagined story of two sisters and an enigmatic town that transforms everyone who visits it. 

 

“One of the most sensitive, realistic explorations of mental health I’ve yet seen in a middle grade novel. … A monumental piece of work, and utterly transportive.”—Adam Gidwitz, New York Times bestselling, Newbery Honor–winning author of The Inquisitor’s Tale

 

JLG Gold Standard Selection