Hodder lands Connolly’s ‘utterly spellbinding’ follow-up to The Book of Lost Things

Hodder & Stoughton has acquired The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly, which returns to the world first created in The Book of Lost Things, published by Hodder in 2006.

The new, “eagerly-awaited” novel is described as “a dark, beautifully written fable that explores the heart of the human condition: love, loyalty and sacrifice". The deal for UK and Commonwealth rights was struck by former Hodder m.d. Carolyn Mays with Darley Anderson and The Land of Lost Things will be published by Atria in the US. Executive publisher Jo Dickinson is now editing. Hodder will publish The Land of Lost Things on 7th September 2023 in hardback, trade paperback, e-book and audio.

The synopsis reads: “Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident: a body without a spirit. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud the fairy stories Phoebe loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world. But an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres."

Dickinson said: “As a huge fan of The Book of Lost Things, I feel so lucky to be working with John on the extraordinary follow up. The Land of Lost Things is storytelling at its pinnacle; dark, immersive and utterly spellbinding. I know it’s a book his many fans have been waiting for with enormous anticipation, and we can’t wait to bring John’s writing to an even wider readership through our ambitious marketing and publicity plans.”

Connolly said: “I never really expected to write a sequel to The Book of Lost Things, but I realise now that the world of that novel has been calling to me for more than 15 years. I’ve returned to it over the years in the form of short stories, but it’s also a novel for which many readers, booksellers, and librarians have a lot of affection – it is, after all, a book about the power and importance of books – so it’s rare that a bookstore event hasn’t involved some discussion of it. In the end, exploring that land once again, this time as an older writer, an older parent, and an older child, turned out to be one of the happiest experiences of my creative life.”