THE WORLD BETWEEN BLINKS

An adventure to a world where lost things—and people—live on.

Cousins Jake and Marisol grew up listening to their late Nana’s exciting tales of adventures whenever the family got together at her house in South Carolina. This summer marks the time to say goodbye, as the house needs to be sold, but Marisol is not ready to move on yet. Finding one of Nana’s old maps is just the excuse for one last adventure. The duo accidentally slips into the World Between Blinks, a place where anything lost in our world—from historical figures like Amelia Earhart to lost cities, extinct animals, and everyday mislaid objects—ends up. Jake and Marisol must find their way back before they start forgetting their own memories and become lost there forever. Chapters alternate between Jake’s and Marisol’s points of view in a novel that beautifully delves into each cousin’s inner turmoil: Marisol struggles with the grief of losing not only Nana, but the house where so many memories were built while Jake feels he has sadly grown used to constantly saying goodbye due to having a traveling diplomat mother. The authors deftly weave those elements into an enduring tale of love, loss, and memory. Jake is White and American; Marisol lives in La Paz with her Bolivian father and her mother, who is Jake’s mother’s identical twin.

An inventive, heartwarming first book in a new middle-grade series.