The Chestnut Roaster

“Starting on All Fools Day, twelve years ago, I remember everything. EVERYTHING. That was a wet Saturday, and that was the day I was born.”

12-year-old Piaf has the ability to (and burden of) remembering everything that has happened since the day she was born. When she discovers everyone in Paris has forgotten the entire last year, 1887, including the disappearance of several gifted children, Piaf and her twin brother Luc embark on a dangerous journey that brings them to the depths of Paris’s underground twin, the Catacombs, to capture the memory thief and find the lost children—but are the two connected? And who dare they trust?

From the acclaimed author of Elsetime, shortlisted for The Awesome Book Award, winner of the Wells Festival of Literature Award Children’s Book Award, a historical fantasy thriller with a dazzling, but tiny heroine who will stop at nothing to catch a memory thief and restore some lost children to their parents. Set in Paris in 1888—both above and below ground. Follow Piaf into the depths of the Catacombs, down tunnels among the dead and the living on a furious chase against time.

Internal illustrations by Ewa Beniak-Haremska
Cover art by Holly Ovenden