A stand-alone fantasy tale from Seanan McGuire’s Alex award-winning Wayward Children series, which began in the Alex, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning, World Fantasy Award finalist, Tiptree Honor List Every Heart a DoorwayThis fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the … respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.
When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she’s found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.
The Wayward Children Series
Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway
Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky
Book 4: In an Absent Dream
more
So this was the story of Lundy, a girl who loved to read and didn’t have friends in this world, so she crossed a door to the goblin market, a place full of magic and bargaining, but make no mistake, it ain’t a fairy tale with a happy ending for kids…
This is a great book if you enjoy this genre.
Another fantastic entry in the Wayward Children series. The Goblin Market is an amazing world and I just can’t get enough of this series. I highly recommend this.
This series is everything. I know, I sound like a broken record and I start all my reviews with this sentence, but I can’t repeat it often enough. The writing is amazing, the characters are amazing and all the different worlds are just lovely. Every book I’m once again curious what I’m gonna read. Will I discover a new world, with a new protagonist? Or will the gang go on one of their beautiful quests. This book gave us Lundy’s backstory and it was everything I had hoped it to be and more.
The first reason I loved this book so much is that Lundy and I seem to have a lot in common. Every time something new about her was revealed, I once more had to admit that it worked liked that for me too. Just like Lundy I always had my nose in a book (even between classes in high school) and just like Lundy I have a hard time dealing with the unfairness of the world. If I would have ever found a door, I think it would have led to the Goblin Market.
I think the Goblin Market might be one of the most interesting worlds I’ve ever encountered, mostly because it’s incredibly easy to understand. The people live quite a simple life. They most of all live an honest and fair life. If you want something, you have to give something, where the worth of something isn’t fixed but based on what you have and can live without. It’s so beautiful to see a world where everyone gets what they need and want and gives what they can give. No questions asked.
Of course, the world does have a dark side and not everything is beautiful. The consequences of taking more than your part are severe, although at times it can be exactly what people want and need. And the world isn’t completely safe either, because even in this fair world there are monsters. Of course one also can’t have everything. Choices have to be made. And yet, yet I think this might be a world I would have loved to live in.
Raised in a household that thrived on rules, it’s no surprise Lundy would find a world of logic and reason. In this prequel, readers will learn of the goblin market. A place where fair value is the only form of payment. There, Lundy will find her first friend and learn lessons that her world of school and books could never teach her. But every choice comes with a price, and you must follow the rules. Lundy will find that the consequences of her actions, are not always easy to live with.
Readers will watch as Lundy grows and tries to understand the differences between her world and the goblin market. As she travels between the two, she must decide which is her best choice, before the door to her chosen world closes forever. At first, it seems like such a simple choice, but nothing is ever easy.
You’ll be captivated by this latest installment to the Wayward Children! Each book takes the readers through another doorway, to another world. And each one is as unique as the characters themselves. There are endless possibilities, and I’m certainly ready to see what else I can discover!
In an Absent Dream
(Wayward Children #4)
by Seanan McGuire
This goes back to one of the characters in book one. This is her life. This is my favorite book of the series so far! Lundy is lonely and loves to read and not play with dolls to train to be the perfect wife and mother. She finds a tree with a door that leads to a goblin world.
A world where bargains are based on fair value agreed on by both sides. Punishment for not following up on your bargain is determined by the world. Turning into a bird slowly.
There’s a door open to come back and forth between
worlds. She had to decide by the age of 18 to stay on one side or the other. The ending was…WOW!
Oh Lundy Lundy Lundy. You silly silly girl. Even *knowing* the outcome of Lundy’s life, this masterful book still managed to have an ending that punches you in the gut. As usual the descriptions of emotion and consequence and analysis of societal ills is beyond on point. I love little Lundy, my heart breaks with how much I resonate with child Lundy.
I loved getting to hear Lundy’s story. It was so sad though. I just want to hug her. The fair value system in the Goblin Market was so interesting. I love getting to see all the different worlds. I will be continuing the series and recommend it!
Lundy has such a unique story as she goes against her family’s expectations of her. While she did not stick out to me in the first book, I found her story to captivate me with this book. The goblin market sounds like a world I would not want to adventure to but perfect for a dreamer. The message of a fair price and how we interact with others was a strong message for me as I raise two young girls.
Each of these book is more impossible to put down than the last.
So many doors and choices, how can one be sure? It’s too perfect to be true, and you know you’re more sure than you could ever be but still that one drop of you wants to have more time to decide. With each book that leads us through a door we get to the see the world that meshes so well with the child, it becomes more apparent how hard this choice is to make. Even when you know you’re sure.
I absolutely adore the way this series is laid out. As with book 2, we are following Lundy through her door, to make impossible choices over the course of 10 short years. Her story is heart wrenching and raw. Similar to the children we’ve met before her, but unique enough to be truly hers.
The cast of characters in her door world, plus her original world are well crafted and bring so much to the story. Each of them are making their own choices, and all have unique traits, that would have changed the events had they not been there.
You will adore these books if you love poetic fantasy, that speaks in truths, yet riddles. Books that make you question your own self, and if you are making the best choices for you. As with the previous installments, there is commentary on the modern family, and family values in general.
I can’t wait to read the next one!
The Wayward Children novella series can be a bit of a mixed bag. All are enjoyable, but some of them are nice, simple stories (nothing wrong with that) and others go deeper and cover more emotional ground. This is one of the latter tales, the story of Lundy, a girl who gets sucked into a portal to a magic world that seems to be everything she wanted, but…the problem Lundy has is that she can’t decide which world she wants and by the time she makes up her mind…well, I don’t want to spoil anything. All these books are stand alone, but it helps to read the first one first to get the context of the series. An excellent, if uneven series, this is a great writer writing great stories and what can possibly be wrong with that?
Oh Lundy, Lundy, Lundy. Even though I knew how this story would end, it was still such an interesting journey to see unfold. I loved following Lundy in both the mundane world and the goblin market.
I still prefer the darker setting of The Moors to the Goblin Market, but the fair value/rules system here was so fascinating, and this book may have some of my favorite secondary characters so far. Moon and the Archivist were wonderful, and I’d love to see a short story following them a little bit further.
This one just breaks my heart! I love Lundy so much and I can totally relate to her dilemma in this book. I love Lundy and I understand so much about her from reading her book. Of all of the worlds we’ve glimpsed so far in the series, I think this is the most interesting. This is a book that I have to sit with for a minute before moving on because it’s so good.
This was an interesting book that I cannot quite bring myself to recommend. Lots of people seem to *really* like it. The characters and the idea of the goblin market are certainly interesting. But the story is told in stops and starts and gaps. It did not work for me. In a small way, it reminded me of the way Wolfe’s The Wizard Knight has some of the traditional derring do associated with Knights and Wizards take place “off screen”. I did not care for it in Wolfe’s story either.
It’s over, and I’m sad. I love these books so much. Lundy’s story of her time in the Goblin Market is both exciting and tragic all at the same time. For as much as she loved the Market and the strict rules of Fair Value, I was surprised to see her become so careless at the end. But in the end, she was too human for her own good…trying to please everyone and hoping the rules would bend for her. She should have known better.
I can’t recommend this series enough. It was almost one year ago to the day that I read and reviewed book #3 in the Wayward Children series, and I’m 47 kinds of depressed that I’ll most likely have to wait another year for book #5, but I suppose it gives me something to look forward to. Thank you Seanan…I loved every minute of this.
Great series, great writing style
This is a wonderful fantasy book with a great cast of characters! I found the ending a tad disappointing, but, I would read it again!
Very different. I was enjoying it until things kind of fell apart at the end. Lots of story threads left unanswered. I felt it could have been better developed.
I love the Wayward Children series and this one is one of my favorites. Lundy’s journey through her door is exceptional. I couldn’t put it down.
Not the best in this series, but adds another layer to the over theme.
I have really enjoyed this book and the rest of the Wayward Children Series. The world-building is amazing. It stays with you and makes you question your own reality. The books clip along with many fun plot twists, and there is a lots of lovely imagery in the prose. While these are technically YA books, I think they cross over well for anyone who enjoys fantastical stories that are not necessarily genre fantasy.