Book nine in the 'Wayward Children' series just crossed my doorway in time for its release in 2024 and there are few pleasures quite like diving into a new Seanan McGuire book. However, I haven't read book eight yet, so I'd better remedy that sharpish. From what I can tell, this is the origin story for a character who will be a large role in the series going forward, starting with that ninth book. Therefore, this is another title that would work perfectly well as a standalone read, but, as always, I'd highly recommend reading through the series in order. It's worth it.

This new character is Antoinette Ricci, who goes by Antsy and has the most brutal reason yet to go through her particular doorway. She's a happy five-year-old and life is good for her until she's five, when her dad has a massive heart attack and dies at Target during a daddy-daughter day. McGuire hits us with this in chapter one, which is told ruthlessly from Antsy's innocent point of view and it's all the more blistering because she has no idea of what's happening. "Instead of her father, there was a pair of scuffed brown shoes that stuck out just past the edge of the aisle."

Warning: it gets worse before it gets better, though McGuire gives us a heads-up before we begin. "I just want to offer you this reassurance: Antsy runs. Before anything can actually happen, Antsy runs." So, bear that in mind as you go in. I see notes online from a lot of readers who need trigger warnings and the fact that we know that this is coming doesn't diminish its impact. Antsy grows up a little and gains a step-dad, who wants to do things with her. He doesn't get that far, but he does carefully and successfully destroy her credibility in her mother's eyes so that she'll always believe him instead of Antsy and that's painful to read.

He gets to the point of opening the top button on her nightgown soon before she turns eight-years-old and that's her cue to run. She hasn't a clue where to run, but she ends up outside what appears to be a thrift store called Anthony & Sons, Trinkets and Treasures. It looks just like the thrift stores we know and love but this one has "Be sure" written above the doorway. She is so in she goes and a fresh Wayward Children story is born because, of course, this isn't your typical thrift store at all.

I've been sold on this series since the very first volume, 'Every Heart a Doorway', which may have had more impact on me than any other single book I've read in decades. It's a special book indeed and I've enjoyed all the sequels thus far, to varying degrees. It's an odd series, partly because it's entirely told in novellas, partly because it covers a lot of different ground and partly because has quite the habit of jumping around. At this point, McGuire has established a universe with a clever set of rules, because one of those rules is that the rules differ wildly depending on which world we happen to be in at any particular time.

The point to acknowledge is that there is an overarching story in our world that is moving forward relatively slowly. A variety of children, for a variety of reasons, walk through doorways to discover new worlds that are more suited to them. They belong there, whatever belonging happens to mean to them, until they don't, and then they end up back in our world, lost once more in the place where they were born but didn't fit before and certainly don't fit now. So they want to find a way to return to the worlds where they do fit, but doorways don't simply appear because we want them to.

With that in mind, let me suggest that the title of this book doesn't only refer to Antsy. Anthony & Sons is "the Shop Where the Lost Things Go", meaning precisely that. Usually that's socks and the other things that we lose on a continual basis. Occasionally, an owner will find their way here and retake possession of whatever it is that they lost, but mostly these items are sold on to others who can find the place a little easier than most. After all, not everything there is lost from our world. A whole slew of worlds exist and the doors that appear in the shop that lead to them do so in similar fashion to the lands in Enid Blyton's 'Faraway Tree' books.

That prompts the first major question from us. We can't control when those doorways appear. It's one of the most important rules in this series. The wayward children are lost precisely because they can't find the doorways back to the worlds in which they belong. If they could, they would, simple as that. Occasionally it happens and we get another novella. Occasionally a way around that rule shows up and we get another novella. Mostly, though, it doesn't happen because nobody knows how and so we don't suddenly get hundreds of novellas just like that.

But, if there's a shop where lost things go, if the way into that shop is through a doorway and if the doorways are findable by customers, then that rule clearly isn't being followed consistently. That's huge and this eighth book sets us up to realise that so that, I presume, it can be addressed in book nine. What's more, given that Antsy has a serious talent for finding doorways, enough that people at Anthony's can then travel through them to countless other worlds, just like in 'Stargate SG-1', to trade with the locals, there's the second major question. How do we connect Antsy with the other wayward children? Patience, my young padawan. Book nine awaits.

The nature of this series is that anyone who's different ought to connect to it quickly and palpably just as a general concept. It's fundamentally about us and that's incredibly valuable. However, the particular differences that we might individually have might connect us personally to some worlds and some characters a good deal more than others. The books about those are always going to be our favourites and my favourites don't trump yours any more than yours trump mine. That's why I particularly like 'Come Tumbling Down' and I'm not as fond of 'Across the Green Grass Fields'. You, on the other hand might have the exact opposite opinion and that's fine too.

That means that it's less valuable than usual to suggest that this is one of my favourites. It doesn't touch the first one, and I honestly doubt anything will, but it's up there with 'Come Tumbling Down' for me, even though they're very different books. That was a busy book with a lot of characters and a lot of plot strands. This one is very focused on Antsy and the only big twist only affects her. I won't spoil it. I'll mention that, perhaps inevitably, one of the two other pivotal characters is a magpie, a magpie that talks and goes by Hudson. The other is Vineta, someone who's like but predates Antsy at the shop.

I liked this one for a lot of reasons. I liked it because Antsy runs. I'm not a reader who has to close a book if it features sexual abuse, but a character escaping that is hugely empowering. I liked it as a very personal story about a single character, who felt utterly real and fleshed out. Were I resident at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, there are plenty of characters I wouldn't hang out with. I'd like to hang out with Antsy. I also liked it as a collector of things. I'd love to visit Anthony & Sons. I'd love to explore its unnatural dimensions and learn about places from things.

If any of that sounds like it could be up your alley, then this book is for you, but, even though this is perfectly valid as a standalone, you really owe it to yourself to read the series. However you might be different, it's for you. After all, we all are in our way, even if some of us are more obviously such than others. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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