In an Absent Dream

By: Seanan McGuire

Narrated by: Cynthia Hopkins

Hugo Award Nominee 2020

A stand-alone fantasy tale from Seanan McGuire's Alex award-winning Wayward Children series, which began in the Alex, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning, World Fantasy Award finalist, Tiptree Honor List novella Every Heart a Doorway

This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.

When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she's found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.

The Wayward Children Series

Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway
Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky
Book 4: In an Absent Dream

©2019 Seanan McGuire (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

Hugo Award - Nominee

World Fantasy Award - Finalist

Perfect bite-sized portal fantasy

Don't expect a happy ending. But definitely expect a good story. I haven't read the rest of the series yet, but definitely plan on doing so after reading this one. Not because I needed context. Because I crave more.

I really do love these books.

if you love fairy tales, you are going to love this book. but caution not every fairy tale tells us about fair value.

Tragically Beautiful

This was an absolutely beautiful addition to the series. The author paints a beautiful world with amazing characters that I know will live with me in my mind and heart for a long time.

The narrator was fantastic!! She added a sorrowful whimsy to the story that really makes you feel the emotion that Lundy is experiencing.

Rules! So unfair!

Lundy is an incredible person and always follows the rules. She even followed the rules in the goblin market. She tried so hard to have equal value for everyone and everything! She was careful, but rules are rules and don’t ask for anything! I love this heartbreaking story and Lundy will have a special place in my heart!

Lundy's adventure in the Goblin Market

One of the students at Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children in Every Heart a Doorway is Lundy. She's unusual even by the standards of the school, in that she is aging in reverse, growing younger, at least in body, rather than older.

This is Lundy's story. Her world, the world she stumbles into through a doorway that shouldn't be there, is the Goblin Market.

It's a strange and magical world, and everything rests on a system of barter and the principle of Fair Value. The Goblin Market also allows people to go back and forth between their world of origin and the Goblin Market freely until the age of eighteen.

There are two catches to this. One is that, at eighteen, if you are debt-free in the world of the Goblin Market, you have to make a choice--take the oath of citizenship and stay permanently, or don't, and leave forever. The second is that, if at eighteen you are not debt-free, you don't have the option of leaving. You're stuck, with all the interesting ways the Goblin Market has of enforcing debt repayment.

It's clear from what we see of Lundy in Every Heart, Lundy managed to seriously miscalculate. This is the story of what, exactly, she did, and why. As always, it's an interesting story with interesting characters. The Goblin Market itself, and its Archivist, are interesting characters in themselves.

Another aspect of this story is Lundy's relationship with her father, who turns out to have his own history with the Goblin Market. This is an aspect we haven't seen in the earlier stories, because most worlds don't offer the easy back and forth that Goblin Market does. From Lundy's viewpoint, that's not necessarily an advantage.

Highly recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

Best One of the Series

Excellent, poignant and gripping. I was surprised as Lundy, of the original characters in the first book, was the least interesting to me. Her back story turned out to be my favorite.

Simply Beautiful

I loved this book! It's beautiful and heartbreaking. I have fallen in love with this series. the first one was my favorite but this one is just as good. It's a prequel so you know what is going to happen to Lundy, but that doesn't spoil anything. The ending made me teary. Such an amazing book!

Best So Far

While I love the entirety of the series, In An Absent Dream is so far my favourite. It is charming and whimsical, and tells a story I have long wondered about.

Good Story

i like that this series gives the back stories to the characters. It's interesting to read what has brought them all to the school for wayward children.

Just so so good.

This series just keeps getting better. Im thankful to have accidently stumbled upon it. On to the next!