The Many Lives of John Stone

A teen questions all she knows about aging when she encounters a set of journals that date from the present back to the reign of King Louis XIV in this absorbing portrait of the court of Versailles (Kirkus Reviews) from the author of the acclaimed Gideon trilogy. Stella Park (Spark for short) has found summer work cataloging historical archives in John Stone’s remote and beautiful house in Suffolk, England. She wasn’t quite sure what to expect, and her uncertainty about living at Stowney House only increases upon arriving: what kind of people live in the twenty-first century without using electricity, telephones, or even a washing machine? Additionally, the notebooks she’s organizing span centuries–they begin in the court of Louis XIV in Versailles–but are written in the same hand. Something strange is going on for sure, and Spark’s questions are piling up. Who exactly is John Stone? What connection does he have to these notebooks? And more importantly, why did he hire her in the first place?