The Lost Year

The Lost Year

By Katherine Marsh

Roaring Brook Press

2023

Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the Covid pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation. But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past—one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret.

Set in alternating timelines that connect the present day to the 1930s and the US to the USSR, Katherine Marsh’s latest novel sheds fresh light on the Holodomor—the horrific famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, which the Soviet government covered up for decades.

Inspired by Marsh’s own family history, The Lost Year is an incredibly timely, page-turning story of family, survival, and sacrifice.

Katherine Marsh

Katherine Marsh is an award-winning author of novels for middle-grade readers including The Lost Year; Nowhere Boy; The Night Tourist; Medusa: The Myth of Monsters and more. Among her honors are National Book Award finalist, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, winner of the Jane Addams Award for Children’s Chapter Books, and winner of the Middle East Book Award. Her books have also been Junior Library Guild Gold Selections, New York Times Notables, American Library Association Notables, Bank Street Best Books, on numerous state lists, and have been translated into sixteen languages. A former magazine journalist, Katherine lives in Washington, DC with her husband, two children and an astonishing array of pets.