About This Book
Lucy Hart grew up lonely, finding refuge in a beloved series of children's books set on a magical island. Now an adult trying to adopt the young boy she's come to love, she gets an unlikely shot at changing everything when the reclusive author of those very books invites a handful of fans to compete at his island estate. The Wishing Game is a story about what we carry from childhood into adulthood — the longing, the wonder, the wounds — and what it means to finally let yourself want something again.
Meg Shaffer writes with a warmth that never tips into sentimentality, and the novel's structure — the contest, the island, the slow unraveling of its mysterious host — gives the romance room to breathe and earn its emotional payoff. The prose has a fairy-tale quality that feels deliberate rather than decorative, echoing the children's books woven throughout the story. It's the kind of novel that moves quickly but stays with you, built on the specific ache of people who learned early that love wasn't guaranteed and are cautiously, hopefully learning otherwise.