Tuesday, April 04, 2023

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

 

Lucy had an awful childhood, marked by absent parents and a sister whose illness always took precedence over Lucy’s life. After losing her fiancé and her unborn child to miscarriage, she takes a job in a community and becomes attached to Christopher, a young boy whose parents are killed and who finds himself in foster care after foster care. The two of them connect, and Lucy longs to foster Christopher, but with no home, car, or money, can’t meet the qualifications. She just wants to be his mother.

Jack Masterson is the author of dozens of popular children’s books, but mysteriously stops writing. Together with his Illustrator, a game, The Wishing Game, is created, and only children who’ve been invited by the reclusive Jack can play. Why they were chosen, and the unfolding game tells a story so heartbreaking and whimsical, that the reader wants them all to win.

This is a well written, sweet story with just enough adventure and romance to soften the most bitter of us. It’s written in a style that will delight middle grade readers, though it’s listed as sci-fi and Women’s fiction. None of the whimsy seemed too far-fetched, and the book is equally entertaining to those of us who are older.

Thank you to Random House Ballantine for the ARC of this delightful story. It will be released on May 30, 2023.

 

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