The Invisible Hour

“A book doesn’t live when it’s written. It lives when it’s read.” In Hoffman’s inventive new novel, a young woman’s life is changed by The Scarlet Letter. Mia is trapped in the strict religious sect known as the Community, and finds escape in the pages of a 200-year-old novel that bears surprising similarities to her own life. But, thanks to the book, she soon literally escapes to another world: she time travels to Hawthorne’s day, where the author is keen to learn all about Mia and her life. Ambitious and deeply felt, this is a magical tale of books and reading, the nature of love, and the price some women pay for breaking powerful men’s rules. For fans of Hoffman’s Magic Lessons and Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January.