The Lost Girl

Anne Ursu's The Lost Girl is a story for 9 year olds about identical twins who have never been apart, and the year somebody decides they should be.

What happens

Iris and Lark Maguire look the same and are not the same. Iris always knows where her shoes are and what time it is. Lark always knows when their parents have been arguing and which book she wants next. Iris talks for Lark. Lark talks Iris down.

Every August they open their class letters together at the kitchen table, in the same order, the way they always have. This year Iris gets the teacher they wanted. Lark gets Mr Hunt, who nobody has ever heard of.

Their parents already knew.

The row that follows is painfully well done. Iris shouts. Their dad makes a dad joke from a laptop screen in London. Their mum says she's sorry they're upset, and Iris works out on the spot that being sorry you're upset is not the same as being sorry.

Meanwhile a new shop has opened on their street. Treasure Hunters, with a chalkboard sign outside that says WE ARE HERE and then, once the doors open, just ARE YOU? The man inside has a face like a mole, calls the girls a matching set, and says the word collectible in a way that isn't quite right.

Then things start going missing around the city. Small ones first.

Here's the thing to know before you start. The story is told by someone watching the sisters, who says early on that they sensed how it would end. It's a wonderful hook and it also puts a low hum of dread underneath a very ordinary school year.

The girls are eleven, which is Year Six here, the storytelling takes its time, and a lot of the tension sits in things nobody says out loud. Anxiety is on the page honestly, in Lark retreating into the room in her head where every story ends badly, and in Iris trying to fix everything by force.

For a confident reader who wants to be trusted with something, it's terrific. For one who still needs the plot to move on every page, the opening will feel slow.

What to read next

If sisters and a house full of strange objects are the pull, The Unicorn Quest will suit. Claire and her older sister Sophie are stuck sorting a great-aunt's collection for the summer when Claire finds a ladder inside a fireplace.