Digging to Australia

An English girl takes a “tumble into a warped wonderland” when her Lewis Carroll-inspired journey unearths unexpected secrets, desires, and dangers (Los Angeles Times).   Trapped in suburban England, appalled by her parents, and desperately shy, twelve-year-old Jennifer Maybee is facing the terrors of adolescence alone. After reading Alice in Wonderland, she digs a hole in her backyard hoping to find what her mother calls the “topsy-turvy world of Australia.” Instead, led by a stray cat, Jennifer follows a secret pathway of a different sort.   On the other side of a tangle of bramble, Jennifer claims her own Wonderland: an empty playground, a deserted church, and an unattended graveyard. But Jennifer isn’t alone. She meets something close to a friend in Bronwyn, a girl burdened by family tragedy. However, it’s in a squatter named Johnny that Jennifer’s fantasies for a new life begin to bloom. He’s too charming, and too unaccountably sexy for Jennifer to listen to those nasty rumors that he might be responsible for the disappearances of other lonely girls. All Jennifer can do now is marvel at the mysteries to come.   From the Somerset Maugham Award–winning author, “dangerous secrets and sinister undertones power this uncommon coming-of-age tale” (Publishers Weekly). Jennifer Maybee, the protagonist of this “enormously enjoyable” novel of innocence lost, returns in Leslie Glaister’s Partial Eclipse (Nick Hornby).   “Perverting Wonderland into a place to smoke cigarettes and pry into other people’s secrets . . . this Alice is a match for any dark thing she encounters.” —Los Angeles Times   “Before Gillian Flynn, there was Lesley Glaister.” —Harper’s Bazaar