Micah and Jovie were best friends who began to drift apart, until one day Micah vanishes into thin air. Months later, the search for Micah has ceased, and Jovie feels like she is the only one who's still looking for her old friend. Through her searches, Jovie learns of the many disappearances and strange events that have taken place in her small town of Far Haven for decades. Her suspicions are only heightened when she witnesses supernatural forces and discovers that a government organization, Barsuda, may be doing more in the town than they have let on. Jovie, along with new friend Sylvan, will have to uncover Far Haven's well-kept secrets to find Micah. Emerson's elaborate story will have readers theorizing as they piece together Far Haven's concealed history along with Jovie. There is more to this town, where the seemingly impossible is possible, than meets they eye. This is an intricate sci-fi mystery for voracious readers who love an extraordinary adventure that transcends space and time.

Strange doings in a run-down coastal Washington town include all the people who suddenly vanish and are quickly forgotten.Emerson puts a science-fiction slant on the notion of how important it is to see others-and how devastating being or feeling unseen can be. Four months after her former best friend Micah's disappearance, Jovie hasn't forgotten her but has to repeatedly remind everyone else, including the school principal, that she ever existed. More shockingly, one day she sees through a spyglass a young stranger sitting in Micah's empty desk in class, someone invisible to everyone but tangible enough to be unconsciously given space in the hallways. Hoping he'll lead her to Micah, Jovie follows him to a group of other drifters awaiting one of the mysterious electrical storms that have been blasting in over the past century, opening a way to somewhere else. Flashing backward and forward in time while having his protagonist fret at length over how she had failed as a friend by not noticing that Micah was troubled, and shoehorning in sheaves of other mysteries ranging from black vans that appear in the wake of an accident at the nearby nuclear plant to a conveniently key bit of technology tied to a previous trilogy, the author runs up the page count without tying off loose ends or letting the pace of events get much beyond an easy amble. The cast is predominantly White.A worthy theme but an overstuffed and ponderous story. (author's note) (Science fiction. 11-14)

Emerson (Lost in Space: Infinity’s Edge) ambitiously juggles multiple timelines in this speculative tale. Far Haven, Wash., is a small town filled with mysteries stemming from an incident at the old nuclear plant, such as inexplicable illnesses and dangerous storms, with the secretive Barsuda Solutions, a local sanitation company, always in the background. In 2022, 14-year-old Sylvan is once again interrogated by Far Haven authorities regarding classmate Jovie’s disappearance four years prior. In 2018, 13-year-old Jovie desperately searches for her best friend Micah, whom no one seems to remember after she vanished a year before. When Jovie meets Mason, a boy only she can see via a spyglass she was given anonymously, she discovers Drifters, people whose corporeal forms are disconnected from the world, and suspects that was Micah’s fate. But as Jovie, Mason, and Sylvan search for the truth about Far Haven, they uncover a terrible secret that spans centuries. The connection between the novel’s myriad themes—such as government conspiracies, supernatural intervention, and alien contact—is sometimes ambiguous and makes for a jam-packed read, but the protagonists’ perseverance and the narrative’s countdown toward an unknown event maintain gripping tension throughout. Most characters cue as white. Ages: 8–12. Agent: Robert Guinsler, Sterling Lord Literistic. (May)