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Published Jan 2015
368 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In a timeless coming-of-age tale as charming and haunting as the movie Stand By Me, Andrew Lovett's Everlasting Lane tells the story of what happens when nine-year-old Peter's father dies and his mother moves them from the city to a house in the countryside, for what seem to Peter to be mysterious reasons.
He's soon distracted, though, by the difficulties of being the new, shy kid at school, and he befriends the other two kids who seem to be outcasts: overweight Tommie and too-smart-for-her-own-good Anna-Marie. Together they try to weather the storm of bullying teachers and fellow students, by escaping into explorations of the seemingly bucolic countryside.
There, though, they find other outcasts from society such as cranky Mr. Merridew, who won't leave his cottage in the woods, and Scarecrow Man, who stands in the fields searching the skies. And meanwhile, Peter is disturbed by the growing awareness that his own mother may be some sort of outcast, too—and that she's hiding something from him in a locked room in the attic, a room she's expressly forbidden him from entering.
Written in beautiful prose, Everlasting Lane is a captivating, absorbing, and suspenseful evocation of the spells of childhood: sun-soaked, nostalgic, with the soft focus and warm glow of a Polaroid—but it's darker than it seems. Will Peter and his mother find the light in that darkness?
"Starred Review. Beautifully written, and as charming as it is dark, the novel unwraps the endless secrets that elude a child." - Kirkus Reviews
"Engrossing...Familial melodrama and confusion are resolved and explained as Lovett's creative tale broadens into an exploratory, discovery-filled journey for three zany outcasts—'a fluttering rabble of butterflies,' each taking in the world one revelation at a time." - Publishers Weekly
"With nods to such children's classics as Alice in Wonderland, Lovett's first novel...contemplates the often very fine line between imagination and reality." - Booklist
"Sophisticated and evocative." - Library Journal
This information about Everlasting Lane was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Andrew Lovett lives near York, England, with his family. Everlasting Lane is his first novel, based, in part, on his own childhood.
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