מאת Matt Haig
“An odyssey of action and awe.” —The New York Times
“A wry and tender love-letter to the best of being human.” —Benedict Cumberbatch
The remarkable next novel from Matt Haig, the author of #1 New York Times bestseller The Midnight Library, with more than nine million copies sold worldwide
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…”
When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.
Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.
Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.
“An odyssey of action and awe.” —The New York Times
“A wry and tender love-letter to the best of being human.” —Benedict Cumberbatch
The remarkable next novel from Matt Haig, the author of #1 New York Times bestseller The Midnight Library, with more than nine million copies sold worldwide
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…”
When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.
Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.
Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.
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Starred review from July 22, 2024
In Haig’s magnificent latest (after The Midnight Library), a retired math teacher unexpectedly inherits property in Ibiza and escapes her static life in Lincolnshire, England. Upon hearing the news, widowed Grace Winters takes up residence in the ramshackle house left to her by her old friend Christina. In a note, Christina suggests Grace find a man called Alberto to show her the miraculous seagrass meadow beneath the Mediterranean. Grace, who doesn’t know how Christina died, determines to follow her late friend’s advice but is unable to appreciate the island’s scenery due to her guilt over her 11-year-old son’s death in a bicycle accident 30 years earlier. Her mood changes, though, when Alberto takes her scuba diving and she’s touched underwater by a shape-shifting blue light, which Alberto calls La Presencia and claims is a portal to another planet. Her encounter with the light also gives her mind-reading and telekinetic powers, which she first tries out in quotidian situations, often to humorous effect, such as when she makes an obnoxious restaurant patron stab himself with a fork. Soon, though, she applies her newfound abilities to a higher purpose, joining a battle to save the island from an unscrupulous developer. Haig’s spellbinding descriptions of the portal and its powers lend themselves to the convincing conceit that Grace, thanks to her encounter with La Presencia, is not only able to change her life but to make a difference in her new community. In Haig’s sure hands, magic comes to breathtaking life. Agent: Clare Conville, C&W Agency. -
While listening to this audiobook, one must believe the impossible is possible--maybe even probable. The otherworldly story begins with an email from a despondent college student, Morris, to his former math teacher, Grace. Jordan Stephens narrates the gloomy email, and listeners feel his pain. Grace responds by telling her amazing story of how she, at age 72, found new energy and a sense of joy from her preternatural adventures on the Spanish island Ibiza. The British actress Johanna Lumley perfectly portrays the crotchety British widow, who is reborn after an alien encounter. She experiences a renewed sense of purpose and new telepathic powers. For some listeners the extraterrestrials and paranormal events may be too much, but others may find them therapeutic. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
