North of Nowhere

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Emily Windsnap series comes a captivating adventure about family, friendship, and the bonds that bridge time.

The sleepy seaside village of Porthaven hides a mystery: Mia’s grandad has vanished, and nobody knows why. When Mia and her mom rush to Porthaven to help her grandmother, Mia imagines long dreary days with no one to talk to except for the old-time fisherman at her grandparents’ pub. But that’s before Mia finds a diary on an empty, docked fishing boat and starts exchanging notes with a local girl named Dee, a girl who seems much like her. Mia is excited about having a new friend, but why do their plans to meet each other never materialize? And why does Dee claim to be stuck at home due to violent storms when Mia sees only sunny skies? Will Mia be able to solve the mystery of where — and when — her grandfather and friend might be before time and tide forever wash away their futures?Kessler nicely captures Mia’s teen relationship with her mom and the thawing of her cool relationship with Gran. The storm that topples Luffsands’ homes into the sea resonates with today’s natural-disaster news.
—Kirkus Reviews

[This] plucky fantasy-adventure hums along with genuine contemporary characters at the helm.
—Publishers Weekly

Kessler, best known for the Emily Windsnap series, creates a number of sympathetic characters and a vivid sense of place in this unusual novel.
—Booklist Online

The eventual revelation of Grandad’s secret is a rather delightful headscratcher that will have readers revisiting various plot points to see just exactly how the puzzle pieces all fit together. ... [R]eaders who enjoyed the mind-bending twists in [Rebecca Stead's "When You Reach Me"] may appreciate the shifts in the space-time continuum here.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

A thought-provoking adventure.
—School Library JournalLiz Kessler is the author of the best-selling Emily Windsnap series, the Philippa Fisher series, the novel A Year Without Autumn, and more recently, the early reader Poppy the Pirate Dog. Liz Kessler lives in England.