The Book of Lost Things Books in Order

The Book of Lost Things sequence sits in a liminal place between children’s fantasy and adult fiction. It starts in ordinary wartime England and then slips, almost sideways, into a realm built from fairy tales, folk stories, and all the fears that cling to them.

In The Book of Lost Things we meet David, a twelve‑year‑old boy grieving his mother and resenting the new family being built around him. Surrounded by books that have begun to whisper to him from the shelves, he follows a voice through a gap in a garden wall and finds himself in Elsewhere, a kingdom twisted out of old stories. Wolves walk like men, woods are full of traps, and a faded king guards a volume that may hold the answers David wants.

The journey he makes is part quest, part therapy. Familiar tales—Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, sleeping princesses—are retold with teeth, asking what happens after the stories we know have ended or gone wrong. David has to learn how to live with loss, how to choose mercy over cruelty, and how to accept that growing up means letting some illusions go without letting go of hope.

Years later, The Land of Lost Things returns to Elsewhere through a different door. Ceres, a young mother, keeps vigil at the hospital bedside of her eight‑year‑old daughter Phoebe, who lies in a coma after a car accident. An old house on the grounds calls to her, a place tied to David’s earlier adventure, and when she steps over its threshold she is drawn into the same alternate world, now seen from a new angle.

In Elsewhere Ceres finds herself restored to sixteen, with her adult memories trapped in a teenager’s body. She moves through villages under siege, haunted forests, and the fortresses of cruel rulers, meeting characters who echo and sometimes literally remember the events of the first book. Witches, dryads, giants, and hunters test her resolve, while an older, stranger power takes an interest in a mother who refuses to abandon her child.

Both books can be read on their own, but together they form a conversation about grief, responsibility, and the way stories shape us. They are often dark—fairy tales here involve real blood and real consequences—but they’re also threaded with humor, warmth, and small acts of kindness. Readers used to Connolly’s crime novels will recognize his eye for damaged people trying, imperfectly, to do the right thing.

On this page you can follow the sequence in order, see how the later book links back to David’s journey, and decide whether to sample the world through a single volume or dive into the full, unsettling landscape of Elsewhere.