A spellbinding tale of magical realism, where twelve-year-old Lottie's colorful world turns suddenly gray when an unexpected accident claims her parents, and she is uprooted from her home to live with an eccentric uncle she never knew she had-on the border that separates the living and the dead.

Lottie lives in Vivelle-the heart of a vibrant city where life exists in brilliant technicolor and nearly everyone has magic. And Lottie is no exception; she can paint pictures to life in every shade and hue imaginable. But at the sudden loss of her parents, all the color is stripped from Lottie's heart and the world around her. Taken in by her reclusive, eccentric uncle, Lottie moves into Forsaken, his vast manor located in the gray wasteland between the Land of the Living and Ever After, the land of the dead. The discovery of a locked-up garden, a wise cardinal, a hidden boy, and a family whose world is full of color despite the bleakness around them begins to pull at the threads of what it means to live in such a near-dead place, slowly returning some of the color to Lottie's private world and giving her hope that life is worth living and experiencing fully, even while one carries sorrow. But as time runs out, Lottie must find a way to thaw both the world and the hearts of her uncle, cousin, and those she has come to know and love in her new home, or all of Forsaken-including Lottie herself-will be absorbed by Ever After long before their time. 

Rep Note:  This is a story of love, loss, magic and hope and the ability we all have to lift us from that dark place from the author of The Circus of Stolen Dreams. The book features beautifully written prose, line-by-line, that begs to be read and savored, an it has award potential.