The last lantern

THE LAST LANTERN

A Novel by Success Oyefuga

On the night the river forgot its name, seventeen-year-old Mara Vale sees a lantern burning in the abandoned house across the water.

Ten years ago, her mother, Lena, vanished without a trace. All she left behind was a brass key and a warning: Never use this after the lantern appears. Now the lantern has appeared. Knocks sound beneath Mara's floor, the town's stone bridge disappears, and people she once knew are being erased from everyone's memory.

Following her mother's notebooks, Mara finds a hidden city beneath her town, the Lantern District, where seven towers surround a black lake and roads end at locked doors. She is joined by Jonas, a mysterious boy with a silver thread on his sleeve, and neither of them can fully trust the other. The Keepers who guard the city only offer pieces of the truth, and a faceless creature with a lantern in its chest is watching.

To find her mother, Mara must learn what she has forgotten. But some truths come at a price, and the closer she gets, the more she wonders who she will become when she finds her.

A gripping mystery-fantasy about memory, family secrets, and the courage to follow the light into the dark.