The Losting Fountain
Published on 20. March 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
352 pages
978-1-4549-5529-0 (ISBN)
Description
Ember, Miles, and Sam have been called home-only home is a place none of them have ever been before. The choices they make will not only determine their own futures but will also have vast and permanent consequences-they will either restore a cosmic balance or destroy the dams that separate two worlds, ending them both. Ember was called because she belonged, Miles because his mother belonged, and Sam . . . well, Sam arranged his own invitation.
The Fountain itself is beautiful and alluring-yet so is the light of an anglerfish. Hidden below the surface, the world of the Fountain is vast: unexplored and unmapped and full of wild things-leviathan and tiny, scuttling things and all manner of creature in between. There are other entities as well, entities that haunt and hunt in the Fountain, because it rewards nearly as often as it punishes, and it has been punishing the greedy and merciless and cruel for a very long time. For those, the Fountain becomes a prison.
The borders between our world and the world of the Fountain are already porous. If the balance between them is upset and control of the Fountain is lost, the consequences will be rapid, merciless, and world-ending. In every timeline that has been or will be, everywhere that water stands in our world will become a passageway for the violent damned to enter ours from the Fountain. For Ember, Miles, and Sam, all from different times, what starts as a journey to take control of their lives quickly becomes a quest to save-or destroy-both worlds, depending on whom you ask.
Rising star and Bram Stoker Award-winning author, Lora Senf has created a gorgeously written, pitch-black fantasy that will transport readers to a world that is as beautiful as it is horrifying and will keep readers on their toes as they devour it page by page.
The Fountain itself is beautiful and alluring-yet so is the light of an anglerfish. Hidden below the surface, the world of the Fountain is vast: unexplored and unmapped and full of wild things-leviathan and tiny, scuttling things and all manner of creature in between. There are other entities as well, entities that haunt and hunt in the Fountain, because it rewards nearly as often as it punishes, and it has been punishing the greedy and merciless and cruel for a very long time. For those, the Fountain becomes a prison.
The borders between our world and the world of the Fountain are already porous. If the balance between them is upset and control of the Fountain is lost, the consequences will be rapid, merciless, and world-ending. In every timeline that has been or will be, everywhere that water stands in our world will become a passageway for the violent damned to enter ours from the Fountain. For Ember, Miles, and Sam, all from different times, what starts as a journey to take control of their lives quickly becomes a quest to save-or destroy-both worlds, depending on whom you ask.
Rising star and Bram Stoker Award-winning author, Lora Senf has created a gorgeously written, pitch-black fantasy that will transport readers to a world that is as beautiful as it is horrifying and will keep readers on their toes as they devour it page by page.
Reviews / Votes
"[A] dark fairytale about the struggle between good and evil in each person's heart."-Booklist
"A devious twist, gloriously horrific monsters, and gentle explorations of grief bring this fable to an emotional close."
-Publishers Weekly
"Fans of dark fantasy with horrifying monsters and action will enjoy the rising action of this novel and its unique world."
-School Library Journal
"Delicate beauty and startling monstrosities."
-The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
"The Losting Fountain is sweet and terrible in the gloriously gutting tradition of Diana Wynne Jones and Richard Adams. A modern fable, this journey through a new, beautifully recognizable landscape of the heart is a quick, compelling read. Highly recommended."
-Seanan McGuire, award-winning author of the Wayward Children series
"Lora Senf's brain is so weird in the best possible ways. If I have to get lost anywhere, I'm glad it's in her imagination. With a cast of fully realized and heartbreaking characters and an intriguing new world beyond our own, The Losting Fountain is a darkly delightful addition to any library or bookshelf."
-Kiersten White, New York Times bestselling author of And I Darken
"In The Losting Fountain, Lora Senf wields eerie unease like a violin, and from it, plays strange, sad music-you will be lured by the siren's song of her story, and eager to be lost in its pages. Needless to say, I will read anything Lora writes."
-Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author of Dust & Grim
"Lora Senf is an expert guide through the shadowy borderlands between nightmare and fairy tale, channeling all their terror, weirdness, and heartbreak-but also their beauty and surprising tenderness. The Losting Fountain is a luminous, scary dreamscape, the kind you wake up from and immediately wish you could return to explore."
-Amelinda Berube, author of Here There are Monsters
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
Young adult
US School Grade: Ninth Grade and over, Interest Age: From 14 to 99 years
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 208 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
452 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4549-5529-0 (9781454955290)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Lora Senf is the author of The Clackity, the first book in the Blight Harbor Novels (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2022), with Bram Stoker Award winning novel, The Nighthouse Keeper and The Loneliest Place to follow. The Clackity is a Junior Library Guild selection, a Cybils Award finalist in the Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction category, is on the New York Public Library's Best Books for Kids 2022 list, was the only middle grade title on Esquire's list of the 22 Best Horror Books of 2022, and is a nominee for the inaugural Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel.