Books
Kids
Popular
Authors & Events
Recommendations
Audio
Oct 04, 2022 | ISBN 9781612199863 PREORDER
Oct 04, 2022 | ISBN 9781612199870 PREORDER
Also available from:
Oct 04, 2022 | ISBN 9781612199863
Oct 04, 2022 | ISBN 9781612199870
The luminous story of a fiercely lonely young woman’s quest to uncover the truth behind her mother’s disappearance . . . When 6-year-old empath Leah Fern—once “The Youngest and Very Best Fortune Teller in the World”—is abandoned by her beautiful magician mother, she is consumed with longing for her mother’s return. Until something bizarre happens: On her 21st birthday Leah receives an inheritance from someone she doesn’t even know, and finds herself launched on a journey of magical discovery. It’s a voyage that will spiral across the United States, Canada, into the Arctic Circle and beyond—and help her make her own life whole by piecing together the mystery surrounding her mother’s disappearance. The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern is an enchanting novel about the transcendent power of the imagination, the magic at the threshold of past and present, and the will it takes to love.
A luminous story about a fiercely lonely young woman’s quest to uncover the truth behind her mother’s disappearance.Born in a carnival trailer, Leah Fern begins her life as the “The Youngest and Very Best Fortune Teller in the World,” taking strangers’ hands and feeling the depths of their emotions. Her mother Jeannie Starr is a captivating magician, but not always an attentive mother, and when Leah is six, Jeannie upends their carnival life with an unexpected exit. With little fanfare and no explanation, she leaves her daughter at the home of Edward Murphy, a kindly older man with whom Leah shares one fierce wish: that Jeannie Starr will return to them. After fifteen years as a small-town outcast, Leah decides to end her life on the occasion of her twenty-first birthday. But the intricate death ritual she has devised is interrupted by a surprise knock on her door. Her mysterious neighbor, the curmudgeonly and reclusive art photographer Essie East, has died and left Leah a very strange inheritance. Through a series of letters, Essie will posthumously lead Leah on a journey to nine points on the map, spanning from South Carolina to Canada to the Arctic Circle—a journey that, the first note promises, will reveal the story of Leah’s mother. Driven by a ferocious resurgence of hope, Leah embarks on this bizarre treasure hunt, Essie’s ashes in a jeweled urn in the passenger seat of her truck. Along her way, she visits islands, libraries, diners, and defunct ice cream parlors, meeting a charming cast of eccentric characters and immersing herself in wonders of the natural world. An enchanting novel about the transcendent powers of the imagination, the magic of the threshold between past and present, and the courage it takes to love. The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern explores the unlikely, at times adversarial, and ultimately redemptive relationship between a young woman who has forgotten how to live and a dead woman who summons her to remember.
“The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern is a bittersweet and achingly tender coming of age novel. Like V. E. Schwab and Audrey Niffenegger, Rita Zoey Chin is an expert guide to that territory in which magic, loss, and possibility change not only the characters but the reader, too.” – Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble “A book that captures such tenderness and longing, and one where the rhythm and enchantment of every sentence lures a reader into joining Leah’s search, with plenty of rewards along the way.” – Aimee Bender, national bestselling author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake “To read The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern is to be transported into a world so luminescent and full of wonder, so infused with sorrow and hope and joy and magic, that I wish I could send a copy to everyone on Earth. Rita Zoey Chin’s captivating debut novel is the best kind of enchantment–transformative and moving and full of untold delights.” – Catherine Chung, Author of Forgotten Country and The Tenth Muse “I was enchanted by this exquisitely written book and the fierce and lovable Leah Fern. Suffused with magic and longing, the novel casts its own tender and solitary light, as if etched on a frozen lake under a full moon. [Its strange glow won’t quickly be forgotten.]” – Sharon Guskin, author of The Forgetting Time
Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network
Stay in Touch
By clicking Sign Up, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Start earning points for buying books! Just for joining you’ll get personalized recommendations on your dashboard daily and features only for members.
