The Book of Hidden Wonders: A Novel

by Polly Crosby

Overview

Romilly Kemp and her eccentric painter father have happy but sheltered lives in a ramshackle mansion in the English countryside. When her father finds fame with a series of children’s books starring Romilly as the main character, everything changes: exotic foods appear on the table, her father appears on TV and strangers appear at their door, convinced the books will lead them to a precious prize.

But as time passes, Romilly’s father becomes increasingly suspicious of the outside world until, before her eyes, he begins to disappear within himself. She returns to his illustrations, looking for a way to connect with her ailing father, and finds a series of clues he’s left just for her. This treasure hunt doesn’t lead her to gold or jewels, but something worth far more—a shocking secret that is crucial to understanding her family.

Written with tremendous heart and charisma, The Book of Hidden Wonders is an unforgettable story about growing up, facing mortality and discovering the hidden wonders that make us who we are.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780778388012
Publisher:	Park Row Books
Publication date:	07/27/2021
Edition description:	First Time Trade
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 7.99(h) x 1.03(d)

About the Author

Polly Crosby grew up on the Suffolk coast and now lives in the heart of Norfolk. She won the Curtis Brown Creative's Yesterday Scholarship, which enabled her to finish her debut. She received the Annabel Abbs Scholarship at the University of East Anglia and is currently working on her second novel.

Editorial Reviews

07/27/2020

Crosby’s moody, richly detailed debut tracks a girl’s coming-of-age in Britain’s Suffolk countryside while struggling to piece together her family history. Towards the end of the 1980s, Romilly Kemp, eight, moves with her father, Tobias, to Braër, an old, moldering farmhouse complete with a moat and a gargoyle protruding from the water. Romilly and Tobias have been on their own since her mother left when Romilly was four, and now her father has abandoned his teaching position in London to write and illustrate a children’s book series starring a version of Romilly. Tobias’s young readers are drawn to Braër, believing his books contain clues to a buried treasure. Over the next seven years, Romilly, in the company of her friend Stacey, attempts to make sense of the past through her own interpretation of the book’s clues, such as a drawing of Romilly with a mole placed on the wrong side of her face. A series of discoveries makes Romilly rethink everything she thought she had known about her family. While few readers are likely to be surprised by the plot reveals, such as Stacey’s true nature, Romilly is a spunky and sympathetic character, and Crosby weaves a magical spell in which dark-edged fantasy collides with everyday life. This is a worthy twist on the haunted house story. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

I felt as if I lived inside The Book of Hidden Wonders while I was reading it. Polly Crosby makes sensory magic here, conjuring images of such vividness that I saw and tasted and smelled and heard and felt them for myself, and I’ll remember them always. I’ll remember Romilly and her father too: I loved them deeply, and they filled and broke my heart.”
– Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson




“An extraordinary debut. Polly Crosby has created an expertly crafted jigsaw puzzle, beautiful, dark, haunting and unforgettable. It is a most wonderfully tender nightmare, a haunted house childhood where the landscape gets ever stranger, a deeply affecting portrait of the climb towards adulthood. Nostalgic, familiar and yet utterly strange. I loved it.”
– Edward Carey, author of Little and The Iremonger Trilogy

“Title notwithstanding, there’s nothing hidden about the many wonders of Polly Crosby’s magical debut. The troubled beauty of Romilly’s relationship to her father, and the wide-eyed wonder through which she sees the world, are just two reasons among a million that I’ve been shouting this novel’s praise to everyone I know. Yes, The Book of Hidden Wonders is a story about daughters and fathers, but it’s more than that: it’s a treatise on how to find hope in a universe rife with heartbreak and loss. May it light some of your darkest hours the way it has mine.”
– Andrew David MacDonald, author of When We Were Vikings

From the Publisher