Invisible Things Book

Sixteen-year-old Sophie knows there is more to the story of her parents' death. And she's on a mission to find the truth. To aid her in solving the decades-old mystery, Sophie has enlisted her best friend, Mikael, whose friendship has turned into something more. It's soon clear that Sophie's future is very much wrapped up in the details of her family's past, and the key lies with information only one man can provide: her parents' former employer, the elusive billionaire Alfred Nobel.

As the threat of war looms in Europe, dangers to Sophie and her loved ones grow. While her determination to solve the mystery doesn't waver, forces beyond her control conspire to keep her from her purpose. Then, news of her great-aunt Tabitha's death sets off a chain of events that leaves Sophie questioning everything.

The more Sophie learns, the more she realizes that nothing—and no one—in her life is what it seems. And coming to terms with the dark secrets she uncovers means imagining a truth that she never dreamed possible. Full of gorgeous settings, thrilling adventure, and romance, invisible things is a novel that dares to ask, what if?

Publishers Weekly

Readers unfamiliar with Davidson's The Explosionist (2008), in which she introduced Scottish teenager Sophie Hunter, the orphaned daughter of two physicists killed in 1923 in an explosion in Alfred Nobel's munitions factory, may flounder in this continuation of Sophie's story. Set in 1938 Copenhagen, in Niels Bohr's Institute for Theoretical Physics, this ambitious sequel is also fantasy disguised as historical fiction. Davidson aptly conveys the excitement of scientific research in the late 1930s, but many may find it challenging to wade through the plethora of scientific theory and historical background and feel invested in Sophie's pursuit, suspenseful though it is, of her family history (which involves Nobel himself). The language is often dense, with cumbersome, information-heavy sentences that develop neither plot nor character; the buildup of the romance between Sophie and her impulsive Danish sweetheart, Mikael, is frustratingly laid-back. The climactic Part Three turns decidedly into fantasy as Sophie travels north by reindeer-drawn sleigh to the ice castle of a foreboding Snow Queen, in a journey reminiscent of Lyra's in Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, and--somewhat unconvincingly--finds personal freedom at last. Ages 14 up. (Dec.)