The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day

Maisie is no ordinary 10-year-old: she passed her maths GCSE at age six and is now studying for a degree. For her tenth birthday, she's hoping for some essential ingredients to help her build a nuclear reactor. Yet a horrified Maisie finds that her family have disappeared - and outside her house, a dense blackness has appeared which she has no explanation for. How will she find her parents and her sister and bring them back home - and what does all this have to do with her experiment?

The story is told in alternating chapters between two timelines that diverge from the point Maisie wakes up on her tenth birthday. In one timeline, Maisie's family have mysteriously disappeared and her house is behaving very strangely. In the other, Maisie's birthday continues as normal, where Edge shows us more of Maisie and her sister Lily's relationship.

When the two timelines converge, a satisfying twist gives an incredible climax to an emotional, fascinating and superbly well-written story. It's also a wonderful introduction to physics for Year 5/6/7, where the science is woven beautifully into the narrative and doesn't detract from the story in any way.