The Stolen Child
A Novel
21 May 2024
Territory Rights — Worldwide including Canada, Singapore and Malaysia, but excluding the British Commonwealth.
Description
An unlikely duo ventures through France and Italy to solve the mystery of a child’s fate in this moving, page-turning novel from “a gifted storyteller” (People).
For decades, Nick Burns has been haunted by a decision he made as a young soldier in World War I, when a French artist he’d befriended thrust both her paintings and her baby into his hands—and disappeared. In 1974, with only months left to live, Nick enlists Jenny, a college dropout desperate for adventure, to help him unravel the mystery. The journey leads them from Paris galleries and provincial towns to a surprising place: the Museum of Tears, the life’s work of a lonely Italian craftsman. Determined to find the baby and the artist, hopeless romantic Jenny and curmudgeonly Nick must reckon with regret, betrayal, and the lives they’ve left behind.
With characteristic warmth and verve, Ann Hood captures a world of possibility and romance through the eyes of a young woman learning to claim her place in it. The Stolen Child is an engaging, timeless novel of secrets, love lost and found, and the nature of forgiveness.
Reviews
"[The Stolen Child] is compelling, skillfully told, and meticulously structured…A well-crafted, fast-paced story about how a single encounter can shape a person’s whole life." — Kirkus (starred review)
"This is a lovely story about two artists meeting in the midst of WWI, a missing baby, and an intelligent, lost young woman helping an old man fix the mistakes of his past. I loved Nick and Jenny from the moment I met them, and had all my fingers crossed that they would find not only what they were looking for, but themselves." — Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful
"Vividly peopled, intricately plotted, and gorgeously written, The Stolen Child is one of those all-consuming and big-hearted novels that explores what it means to be human – how to love, accept loss, transcend failures, and become the person you are meant to be. Reading Ann Hood is like setting out on an adventure with a wise and trusted friend … you never want it to end" — Adrienne Brodeur, author of Little Monsters and Wild Game