The Memory Wood

‘If you’ve only just arrived . . . then why do you want to leave?’

Elissa arrived in Memory Wood on the most important day of her life. The eleven-year-old chess prodigy was competing at the English Youth Grand Prix when she was snatched, and woke up in a makeshift cell underground.

Elijah has lived beside Memory Wood for as long as he can remember. He’s only ten but he’s spent his life so far exploring every inch of it, and that’s how he finds Elissa.

When he appears in her cell, Elissa assumes Elijah will save her; that he’ll run and call for help. But Elijah doesn’t want her to leave.

And not only that, but Elijah knows how this can end. After all, Elissa isn’t the first girl he’s found beneath Memory Wood.

As time runs out for Elissa and her abductor’s behaviour becomes more erratic, she knows she must act. Elissa draws on all her resilience, her powers of logic and her strength to try to outwit Elijah, even as he tries to make her the friend he’s never had. He is her only hope of survival and their deadly game of cat and mouse, of deception and betrayal will determine whether either of them will leave alive . . .