This debut novel of intrigue, family betrayal and an unsolved case of missing children will grip readers from first page to last.
In 1944 Paris, a youthful woman acts as keeper of the Cabinet of Earths, filled with beautiful bottles. Each bottle contains the "earth" of a person and holds time at a standstill; as long as his or her earth remains in its bottle, the human being will not age. But when one of the Keeper's sons betrays the other, she embraces her mortality and bequeaths her vocation to her four-year-old grandson, Henri-Pierre Fourcroy. Slave to the cabinet and now in his 60s, Henri awaits a worthy successor. Enter 13-year-old Maya Davidson, whose family heads from California to Paris for her father's work as a scientist and to fulfill her mother's wish after a challenging battle with cancer.
First-time author Anne Nesbet goes to town with elements of French history, including drawing upon two real scientists, Antoine Lavoisier, who was active in the French Resistance, and his apprentice, Antoine Fourcroy. Maya, who is not taken in by the "beautiful people" at her school, led by a teen she calls "Dolphin" (her mispronunciation of "Dauphin," a remnant of the old French monarchy), strikes up a friendship with Valko, a transplant from Bulgaria who's always up for adventure. Maya's gregarious five-year-old brother, James, leads her and Valko to all sorts of interesting people, including two feuding men named Henri Fourcroy--the one enslaved to the Cabinet and also his mesmerizing uncle--who turn out to be Maya's relatives. Maya's "invisible" Cousin Louise holds less appeal for the teen--until Maya realizes that Louise is central to unlocking the mystery of the beautiful people who never seem to age.
Nesbet explores the subtle distinctions between the ignored versus the invisible members of society, the price of beauty and immortality, and the sense of displacement both Maya and Valko experience. Valko compares himself to the Roman Bath ruins in a Parisian square: "the current Valko, the older Valko, and somewhere under everything, the ruins of Bulgaria!" The two friends' outsider status gives them a keener perception of the events going on around them. Readers will be swept along by the novel's swift pace and enjoy the mystery's unraveling with Maya and Valko as their companions. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: A first-time author takes readers to Paris, where a pair of teens unlocks a secret cabinet and a generations-old mystery.