Understory

Story Easton knows the first line of every book, but never the last. She never cries, but she fakes it beautifully. And at night, she escapes from the failure of her own life by breaking into the homes of others, and feeling, for a short while, like a different, better person. But one night, as an uninvited guest in someone’s empty room, she discovers a story sadder than her own: a boy named Cooper Payne, whose dream of visiting the Amazon rainforest and discovering the moonflower from his favourite book, Once Upon a Moonflower, died alongside his father. For reasons even she doesn’t entirely understand, Story decides that she will help Cooper and his mother. She will make his dream come true. The Understory is a magical, moving, funny, and poignant story of failure and success; of falling apart and rebuilding; and of coincidences that never really are. Part comedy, part drama, and part fairy tale, Elizabeth Leiknes’s second novel is a wonder you won’t soon forget.