From Publishers Weekly
Before he broke onto the adult bestseller lists with his irreverent interpretations of the Cinderella story (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister) and the Wizard of Oz (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West), Maguire wrote children's books with titles like Six Haunted Hairdos, Seven Spiders Spinning and Four Stupid Cupids. His latest is a virtual literary paella of adult and children's fantasies: Jack the Ripper, A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Exorcist even a wafting glimpse of Dracula. The result is a deftly written, compulsively readable modern-day ghost story that easily elicits suspension of disbelief. American writer Winifred Rudge, whose mass market book about astrology has been far more successful than her fiction, is in London to research a novel linking Jack the Ripper to the house in Hampstead where her own great-great-grandfather rumored to be the model for Ebenezer Scrooge lived. But as Winifred discovers, there is no evidence that the Ripper ever visited Hampstead, let alone buried one of his victims inside the chimney of a house there, and his presence in the story is a red herring. Much more interesting is the mysterious disappearance of Winnie's cousin, John Comestor, the latest resident of the family house. Moreover, something is making an infernal racket inside the chimney, and soon there are other bizarre manifestations of some unseen force. A Dickensian assortment of neighbors (one dotty lady is called Mrs. Maddingly) variously obfuscate and hint at strange events. Maguire's prose is both jaunty and scary; he knows how to mix spooky ingredients with contemporary situations. By the time a spirit called Gervasa begins to speak through Winnie, readers will be hooked. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Children's novelist Winifred Rudge flies from her Boston-area home to London to pay a visit to her distant cousin and old friend John. Instead of receiving his guest open-armed, John is nowhere to be found. His office staff is evasive in fielding Winnie's calls, and Mac and Jenkins, a pair of superstitious home remodelers hired by John to work on the kitchen in his absence, begin behaving strangely, as eerie symbols appear on the wall and inexplicable noises issue from the walled-up chimney space. That Winnie is not alone in her victimization by an otherworldly spirit is a good sign she's not having a breakdown. Maguire, who already has two best sellers to his credit (e.g., Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister) makes the supernatural chillingly real. Setting the story in Winnie and John's ancestral home and filling the neighboring house with John's intimidating new inamorata, Allegra, makes us root for the self-destructive Winnie, a most unlikely heroine. An essential purchase and a substantial Halloween treat. Margee Smith, Grace A. Dow Memorial Lib., Midland, MI Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Winifred Rudge is a writer who has published several children's books and one successful astrology book. She's working on a new novel and is unable to get the central character, Wendy Pritzke, out of her head. Winifred travels to England to visit her cousin, John Comestor, but she's surprised to find him absent when she arrives. As the days go by, Winifred begins to suspect that John is missing and possibly in trouble, and she can't seem to get any useful information from his eccentric tenant, the contractors working on John's flat, or John's sometimes girlfriend, Allegra. What Winifred does discover is that John's flat appears to be haunted and that the ghostly happenings are dredging up the deeply buried past she has been avoiding for so long. Though a slow beginning and the fact that the ghost story and Winifred's troubled history don't gel together well hamper the narrative, but Maguire, the author of the popular novels Wicked (1996) and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (1999), brings the story to a satisfying conclusion. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
Winifred Rudge, a bemused writer struggling to get beyond the runaway success of her mass-market astrology book, travels to London to jump-start her new novel about a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper. Upon her arrival, she finds that her stepcousin and old friend John Comestor has disappeared, and a ghostly presence seems to have taken over his home. Is the spirit Winnie's great-great-grandfather, who, family legend claims, was Charles Dickens's childhood inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge? Could it be the ghostly remains of Jack the Ripper? Or a phantasm derived from a more arcane and insidious origin? Winnie begins to investigate and finds herself the unwilling audience for a drama of specters and shades -- some from her family's peculiar history and some from her own unvanquished past.In the spirit of A. S. Byatt's Possession, with dark echoing overtones of A Christmas Carol, Lost presents a rich fictional world that will enrapture its readers.


Download Description
E-book extras: The full text of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens; reading group guide. Winifred Rudge travels to London to jump-start a new novel about Jack the Ripper. But upon arriving at her ancestral rowhouse (once owned by the purported model for Ebenezer Scrooge), Winnie finds her friend and stepcousin missing and a ghostly presence in his place. Scrooge, Jack the Ripper, or a phantasm of more arcane and insidious origin -- what is haunting Winnie? Winifred Rudge, a bemused writer struggling to get beyond the runaway success of her mass-market astrology book, travels to London to jump-start her new novel about a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper. Upon her arrival, she finds that her stepcousin and old friend John Comestor has disappeared, and a ghostly presence seems to have taken over his home. Is the spirit Winnie's great-great-grandfather, who, family legend claims, was Charles Dickens's childhood inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge? Could it be the ghostly remains of Jack the Ripper? Or a phantasm derived from a more arcane and insidious origin? Winnie begins to investigate and finds herself the unwilling audience for a drama of specters and shades -- some from her family's peculiar history and some from her own unvanquished past. In the spirit of A. S. Byatt's Possession, with dark echoing overtones of A Christmas Carol, Lost presents a rich fictional world that will enrapture its readers.


About the Author
Gregory Maguire received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Tufts University. His work as a consultant in creative writing for children takes him to speaking engagements across the United States and abroad. He is a founder and codirector of Children's Literature New England, Incorporated, a non-profit educational charity established in 1987. The author of numerous books for children, Mr. Maguire is also a contributor to Am I Blue?: Coming Out From the Silence, a collection of short stories for gay and lesbian teenagers.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Winifred Rudge, a bemused writer struggling to get beyond the runaway success of her mass-market astrology book, travels to London to jump-start her new novel about a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper. Upon her arrival, she finds that her stepcousin and old friend John Comestor has disappeared, and a ghostly presence seems to have taken over his home. Is the spirit Winnie's great-great-grandfather, who, family legend claims, was Charles Dickens's childhood inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge? Could it be the ghostly remains of Jack the Ripper? Or a phantasm derived from a more arcane and insidious origin? Winnie begins to investigate and finds herself the unwilling audience for a drama of specters and shades — some from her family's peculiar history and some from her own unvanquished past.

In the spirit of A. S. Byatt's Possession, with dark echoing overtones of A Christmas Carol, Lost presents a rich fictional world that will enrapture its readers.

About the Author

Gregory Maguire received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Tufts University. His work as a consultant in creative writing for children takes him to speaking engagements across the United States and abroad. He is a founder and codirector of Children's Literature New England, Incorporated, a non-profit educational charity established in 1987. The author of numerous books for children, Mr. Maguire is also a contributor to Am I Blue?: Coming Out From the Silence, a collection of short stories for gay and lesbian teenagers.

SYNOPSIS

E-book extras: The full text of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens; reading group guide.

Winifred Rudge, a bemused writer struggling to get beyond the runaway success of her mass-market astrology book, travels to London to jump-start her new novel about a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Before he broke onto the adult bestseller lists with his irreverent interpretations of the Cinderella story (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister) and the Wizard of Oz (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West), Maguire wrote children's books with titles like Six Haunted Hairdos, Seven Spiders Spinning and Four Stupid Cupids. His latest is a virtual literary paella of adult and children's fantasies: Jack the Ripper, A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Exorcist even a wafting glimpse of Dracula. The result is a deftly written, compulsively readable modern-day ghost story that easily elicits suspension of disbelief. American writer Winifred Rudge, whose mass market book about astrology has been far more successful than her fiction, is in London to research a novel linking Jack the Ripper to the house in Hampstead where her own great-great-grandfather rumored to be the model for Ebenezer Scrooge lived. But as Winifred discovers, there is no evidence that the Ripper ever visited Hampstead, let alone buried one of his victims inside the chimney of a house there, and his presence in the story is a red herring. Much more interesting is the mysterious disappearance of Winnie's cousin, John Comestor, the latest resident of the family house. Moreover, something is making an infernal racket inside the chimney, and soon there are other bizarre manifestations of some unseen force. A Dickensian assortment of neighbors (one dotty lady is called Mrs. Maddingly) variously obfuscate and hint at strange events. Maguire's prose is both jaunty and scary; he knows how to mix spooky ingredients with contemporary situations. By the time a spirit called Gervasa begins to speakthrough Winnie, readers will be hooked. (Oct. 2) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

VOYA

Author of interpretations of the Cinderella story in Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (Regan Books, 1999) and the Wizard of Oz in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (HarperCollins, 1996), Maguire takes elements of Jack the Ripper, A Christmas Carol, and Peter Pan, and touches of Alice in Wonderland and Dracula to deftly create a modern ghost story that readily allows the reader to suspend any disbelief of a ghost locked up in the wall of a London apartment. This long-ago residence of Ozias Rudge, the supposed real Ebenezer Scrooge who told his ghost story to young Dickens, is an appropriate setting for a modern tale of suspense and supernatural horror. When Winnie, a disillusioned middle-aged writer, releases the ghost of Gervasa, a young, condemned thirteenth-century French woman grieving for her unborn child, the story becomes deliciously suspenseful. The reader wants to discover what happened to the infant and whether Gervasa convinces Winnie to relinquish her body. After all, in Gervasa's opinion, Winnie really is not alive anyway. Maguire convincingly wraps up the tale, allowing Winnie a chance at another life and the ghost a chance to enter the afterlife, knowing her infant survived her death by burning. With almost three hundred Amazon.com reader reviews for Wicked certainly indicating a wide readership, Maguire's Lost will delight his followers as well as expand his readership. Reading this book might even cause young adults to explore the many classics Maguire refers to, which most certainly will delight high school English teachers. VOYA CODES: 5Q 4P S A/YA (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Senior High,defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult and Young Adult). 2001, Regan/HarperCollins, 339p, $26. Ages 15 to Adult. Reviewer: Ruth E. Cox SOURCE: VOYA, February 2002 (Vol. 24, No.6)

Library Journal