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Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Award-winning author Elana K. Arnold returns with a boldly visionary, deeply felt story that crosses space and time to examine loss and love in a world on the brink.
It is the late summer of 2021, and a girl named Nora is on the Paris Metro.
Nora, whose mother loved her, even though Nora was broken.
Nora, who couldn't help her mother when her mother needed her most.
Nora, from whom the pandemic has taken nearly everything, save the object she clings to: a cylinder containing her mother's ashes.
With no family left, no friends to speak of, and no way to turn back time, Nora has come to France to keep a promise she never got to make: to spread the ashes in a place her mother never got to see. But instead, Nora finds herself on the run through a forest in the night, taking refuge in a dark holloway. And when she wakes, and tries to make her way back to something she recognizes, she realizes that is impossible.
Because it is no longer 2021.
Questioning everything—including her own sanity—Nora sets out on a journey through a time and place completely foreign to her, and yet one that, much like the time and place she came from, is defined by death, loss, fear, and uncertainty. A journey in which she must find a way to honor her mother—and heal herself—in a world that feels irrevocably broken.
"Beautifully written and deeply introspective, the novel build[s] a profound and moving portrait of generational trauma, and the ways love can both wound and heal. A poignant meditation on what it means to feel understood." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Award-winning Arnold truly puts her prose prowess and grasp of complex topics on display in this story. Nora's characterization is incredibly powerful, capturing the nuances of an autistic experience. What's even more impressive is Arnold's ability to bring humanity to the complexity of the pandemic and anti-vax parents without diminishing the harm caused. A must purchase." —Booklist (starred review)
"Arnold successfully renders Nora's sensory and intellectual overload through the protagonist's lyrical reflections on perception, the societal connections between post–Covid pandemic and post-WWII eras, and the making of art as essential and eternal. Posing thought-provoking questions about time, love, and relationships, it's an ambitious and immersive portrait of one neurodivergent teen's experience." —Publishers Weekly
"Holloway is a symphony, a museum—an homage to art and what feeds it. Elana K. Arnold paints prose like a master, every word in place. Nora's story is a fascinating journey through time, love, and forgiveness." —A.S. King, Michael L. Printz Award-winning author of Dig
This information about Holloway 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.
Arielle Gray
Elana K. Arnold is the award-winning author of many books for children and teens, including the Sydney Taylor and National Jewish Book Award winner The Blood Years, the Printz Honor winner Damsel, the National Book Award finalist What Girls Are Made Of, and the Global Read Aloud selection A Boy Called Bat. She lives in Long Beach, California, with her husband, two children, and a menagerie of animals. You can find her online at elanakarnold.com.
Author Interview
Link to Elana K. Arnold's Website
Name Pronunciation
Elana K. Arnold: uh-LAH-nuh
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