The Empty Place

by Olivia A. Cole

A powerful and imaginative story about a girl fighting to find her way back home from a mind-bending land of the lost. When Henry’s father goes missing in the forest on her tenth birthday, her entire world shatters. The last thing she expects is for him to emerge from the trees exactly one year later, unharmed and bearing a gift for her—a strange necklace.  Everyone says her father’s reappearance is a miracle, but Henry wants real answers to her questions. Where did her father go? How did he get back? And what’s the truth behind his gift? 

Wearing the necklace and carrying only a simple map, Henry enters the same forest that swallowed her father. But beyond the trees, she finds a world more incredible and dangerous than she ever imagined. It’s a place for all who are lost, and there’s no clear method of escape. As Henry follows in her father’s footsteps and searches for a way home, she discovers that the truth she’s seeking isn’t as simple as she hoped, and if she wants to leave this world, she’ll have to be braver than she’s ever been.

Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Audiobook, Family, Young Adult

320 pages, Hardcover

Published November 12, 2024

About the author

Olivia Cole is an author and blogger from Louisville, Kentucky. She spent eight years in Chicago and two in South Florida before finding her way back home. She is the author of PANTHER IN THE HIVE and its sequel, THE ROOSTER’S GARDEN, as well as her latest young adult series, A CONSPIRACY OF STARS and its sequel AN ANATOMY OF BEASTS. She is on the Creative Writing faculty at the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts and is the founder of the sci-fi art show for young Kentucky women, KINDRED: MAKING SPACE IN SPACE.

Reviews

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great read for older children, younger teenagers. I'm not big into fantasy, but it was enough to keep me interested.

[flick · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars
7th Grade +


The book starts with a promising premise. A magical quest of an adventure trying to follow a map and learn dark secrets. It has the foundation of a good story with good writing and a strong concept. I will recommend this book to my middle grade students because I do genuinely believe they will enjoy it. However this book critically suffers from some major flaws.
The book runs circles around itself without going anywhere for the longest time. It does set itself up to be this magical adventure/journey of self discovery but most of the middle is muddled without any clear sense of direction. I understand that as the book goes on, finding and accepting your own truth is how you become found. And it is a good metaphor, just not a well executed one. The ending even includes extremely impactful quotes that I would want my students to understand. “Sometimes we don’t fully understand what has been done until we hear from whom it has been done too.” And “Your experience is yours. Not others.” But those quotes about understanding how our actions affect others and knowing that other people may see the same situation a different way are wasted on this ending. Not enough of the story supported that message. Henry seeing that she needs to be her own person and doesn't need approval from her father makes sense and it justifies her initial query/motivation to go into the forest. But it takes so long to get there. The foundation and the idea of a magical quest are solid but it lacks real drive forward for the majority of the book only to slam you with wild actions in the last 100 pages or so. It's disorientating and not a sign of good pacing.
I really struggled to connect to Henry and her motivation. Not only because it felt like a very sudden switch only triggered by a conversation with her uncle, but her father is clearly not a guy worth all of this effort. Before he returns there is absolutely no question about his character or motivations, but the minute he returns her narrative and tone about him changes so rapidly. All because something her uncle said in passing. And then it feels like this self conscious 180 that left me reeling. I wish there was more ground work to support this reckless decision to go tramping through the woods. Clearly she didn't mean to go as far as she did, but it still feels like a decision made out of left field that then dictates her every choice afterwards.
And her father does not seem like a person that is worth that kind of effort. He is a paradox of a person. Using platitudes like "nature is neutral" only to turn around and use it as justification to take what he wants and go where he wants. He cares more about the opinions of his viewers than the needs of his family. At one point the book talks about items he finds at important sites as "finders keepers" and tresspasses on land because he thinks everyone has a right to go through there. This man took a small child on a 10 mile hike, teased and made fun of her for water usage, and proceeded to record it. No wonder Henry believes "Getting home only matters if she's the right kind of daughter." He becomes less and less redeemable as the book continues and I struggled to understand Henry's desperate need to be more like him and make him proud. And my dislike of this book doesn’t come from him being a selfish person, it is that up until almost the last 100 pages, Henry still idolizes him.
Honestly Henry should give herself more credit. She is a lot more like her father than she realizes. Both selfishly plunge headfirst into adventure without any concern as to how their actions will affect others. They willfully ignore other people's boundaries as long as it benefits their own personal mission. They genuinely do not seem to care how their actions will have consequences for those around them. It is all about their own goals. It is great she returned the things he stole, but most of the time she is doing it in a destructive way. Just trampling through the aftermath left by her father.
After everything we don't get a satisfying conclusion. There is no confrontation, her dad is almost let off the hook. There is an implication that she will speak her mind but we don't get to see that play out. We are told point blank that he would have never returned to his family if he wasn't chased out. And then that is just pushed aside immediately. This man stole their moon with little to no consequence and Henry has to be the redemption he doesn't deserve. It is a frustrating ending for a character that blindly followed this terrible man.
I feel like it would have made more sense for Henry to have ended up in this place while in the throngs of grief only to run into her father here. Instead of the awkward transition from missing him, to worrying about his opinion of her, to getting lost. The message could have been the same, his reluctance could have been the same but the pacing has a potential to be better. Instead of wandering around for most of the book there is a much clearer directive: Convince dad to come home. That way we get that confrontation that is so sorely needed. He gets to be called out for his poor choices and Henry gets to stand up for herself.
I wanted to enjoy this book more and it feels like there is no justice for what her father did. It is only made “okay” by his daughter’s actions. She does not make these choices consciously. She simply stumbles through returning what was taken to let those he affected heal. This is where it would have been more impactful to again have her meet him in This Place and actively choose to clash with his decisions. Instead it was: “oh yeah here's a random thing I found in this bag.” It isn’t as purposeful a decision as it could have been.

[Jennifer Coffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like that Henry, the main character, has friends that are from all different cultures and their names reflect that.

I did not like that I was discovering the dynamics of the plot before Henry was.

[Ms. Yingling · Rating 3 out of 5]

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Henry Lightfoot (whose real name is Henrietta), has struggled for a year after the disappearance of her father. If happened on her birthday, which adds another level of sadness to everything. He was an explorer, and a content creator for a YouTube channel who talked about having adventures. He went missing from the nearby Quivandel forest, which seemed very out of character. Henry has tried to come to terms with the disappearance, hanging out with her best friend Ibtihaj. When her father shows up, again on her birthday, Henry is glad he's back but has a hard time dealing with all of the emotions he return brings up. He gives her a necklace wrapped in a map, and doesn't have a good explanation for what happened. It would have been helpful if he had, because when she goes into Quinvandel to try to get away from the tension at home, she falls. She thinks it is a sinkhole, but it goes on for longer than she suspects it should, and when she lands, she is in a strange place, being pursued by monsters. She eventually runs into a boy who takes her to his community. Angie is the one who deals with newcomers to This Place, but even she doesn't have a lot of answers. No one does. There are a lot of odd things that happen; when new people come, their names appear over beds in the dormitory, and if they manage to leave, the name disappears. Javier cooks for everyone, even though no one really needs food. There's a concensus that time works differently , but no one seems to know how one can leave. Henry meets Wolfson, who was lost and came to This Place when he was very young, and who has only the vaguest memory that his mother and grandmother weren't nice. Ndidi, who is from Nigeria, isn't quite sure why she got lost, either. Things are becoming unsettled in the area, with animal attacks increasing, weather being odd, and time slipping about in even more unusual ways than it normally does. Henry works with Wolfson and Ndidi, who help out Angie, but also tries to follow her father's map and find clues to his existence in This Place. She talks to Christopher, the junk man, who has her father's compass, but he isn't helpful. She manages to get into the Small Place and meet Emma, who has managed to leave, but who has come back again. She manages to get to the fountain of truth, but it tells her that her father is a thief. When one of the women in the community house is bitten, the three children go on a quest to meet the witch, also known as the woman at the top of the world, to try to figure out a cure. Will they be able to figure out what is going on, and how to return to their homes?
Strengths: The idea of slipping into another world is always amusing, and is always open to new interpretations. In titles as wide ranging as Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), Jones' The Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998), or Durst's Even and Odd (2021), there is something very appealing to middle grade readers about having adventures far from one's home. There are scary elements as well, since everyone wants to get home, but no one knows how. Henry puts in a good effort to discover facets about her father's personality as well as his visit, and attempts to use this knowledge to get home herself. This title explores the concepts of truth, being "lost", and discovering things that one must learn before being able to learn and grow.
Weaknesses: Most portal fantasies have a little more action an adventure than this did. It was also a bit disconcerting that no one in This Place seemed to know much information about it, and we never really get a good explanation of what has happened to either Henry or her father. This has a bit of a young adult feel to the philosophical exploration.
What I really think: This might be a good choice for readers who enjoyed allegorical fantasies like Britt's The Lost Track of Time or Malienko's This Appearing House.

[Ryo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book for free in a Goodreads giveaway.

A somewhat interesting YA fantasy adventure story, but a lot of things felt underexplained, and there's frankly not much excitement in the fantasy world, despite all the weirdness going on and actual beasts coming after the main character. It also ends rather abruptly without much time for reflection on what happened near the end. Henry's father disappears in the forest near her house (Henry is short for Henrietta) a year before the book opens, and then on her twelfth birthday, he suddenly reappears. Henry had spent a year trying to process her grief about losing her father, only for him to come back into her life, and she understandably has a lot of feelings about it. Her father ends up in the hospital under observation, and wakes up briefly to give Henry a necklace and a map. She ends up going into the forest where her father disappeared, only to find herself falling into a strange world called This Place, where she meets a bunch of people who, like her, were suddenly taken from somewhere on Earth and ended up in this other world. She realizes that This Place is where her father was lost for the year he was gone, and she sets out to find what he was doing there and what the necklace means.

The world that the author builds in This Place is interesting enough, with a cast of colorful characters, plucked from various places in the world. This concept of people getting transported to This Place from anywhere in the world makes it possible for the author to bring together people from different countries and cultures, along with some descriptions of delicious food from all over the world, which I thought was fun. Henry's two main companions, Wolfson and Ndidi, get fleshed out quite a bit, but there are many other mysterious characters in This Place that seem to be stuck there for a long time but aren't really explored. I would've liked to know more about some of these characters' backstories, like Christopher and Angie. Henry and her friends get chased by some big beasts in This Place, but this is really the only source of excitement that happens there, and it doesn't happen all that often.

Despite Henry's father being such a big presence in her life, I feel like she really doesn't find out all that much about him in This Place, even though that seems to be most of the point of the place existing in the book, for Henry to learn more about her father. We only really get superficial facts, like how he wrote the map, where he went, who he talked to, and where the necklace he gave Henry came from, but not really why, and I didn't really have a great understanding of his character.

The ending was also quite disappointing. The action wraps up, but then the book abruptly ends, without much of a reunion or resolution. We don't get to witness Henry have the conversations that she undoubtedly would've had at the end, and that was so unsatisfying, to see her go through this journey and not get to talk about it with the one person who went through it and the person she was trying to figure out the whole time.

It's an easy read, with some interesting characters and an interesting world. I just wish there were more characters that were actually fleshed out, and that the backstories of some crucial characters were explored a lot more than they actually were.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't often review or even save the books that I read to my children, but this one hit harder than I thought it was going to be.

Henry gives us a wonderful journey of grief: initially because of the loss of her father when he goes and finds himself lost in This Place, and then when she begins to discover that that her father isn't who she thinks she is. What ties and unites those in This Place is their almost intentional overlooking of what is the obvious, which so often happens in real life. We are in denial about what we need to do for ourselves, and it takes us awhile to be confronted with that matter. Henry doesn't want to know the truth about her father, which sends her on this impossible quest to find the wrong answers. Instead she only gets more and more confirmation that he is who others think he is: a man who ignores tribal rules to traipse on land that he feels should belong to him, who steals artifacts and items from those who need them, and who ultimately tries to gift a precious item to his daughter without at all thinking about the impact of his actions.

For Henry this journey is both about wanting to get closer to her father but also know that she doesn't have to be him, that her own life is valid and separate. It is then only obvious (and probably for others in This Place as well), that the answers are not found in This Place but instead realizing that they can be found by having a conversation with our loved ones.

The journeys of Ndidi and Wolfson are equally poignant, with a damaging truth being revealed that ultimately reinforces the strength that each has inside them, and the support that they can find outside them.

[Sails and Scales · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found myself often getting a little distracted and bored because her motivations seem a little off. We’re not really told why she cares so much about following her father’s footsteps. Is it a deep desire to connect with her dad? Feelings of abandonment? It’s not clear, and because of that her choices often don’t make a lot of sense. It’s not clear why she idolizes her father so much, especially as she learns of his faults. You’d think she’d use it as a growing up opportunity to understand that people are complicated and flawed, but instead she doesn’t really change her mind and, if anything, becomes just as reckless and selfish as her father was. Her father gets off the hook in a lot of ways, so the conclusion feels flat and his poor choices — the entire driving reason behind the plot — don’t seem like they get justice.

The pacing had some problems. Nothing happens for a long time and it’s somewhat uninteresting and difficult to get through only for everything to happen all at once at the end. It happened so quickly instead of having longer realizations that I had to read some parts twice to understand why there was a sudden switch.

I liked some of the elements of this world. Some of the characters were fun, but it was disappointing that so few of them were there throughout the story. I wish we’d gotten to understand more of the characters there and their backstories.

Overall, this book had some interesting ideas and occasionally really good sentences or lines, but it didn’t hit for me for the most part.

[✧ Beanie Reads ✧ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
2.5 rounded up

This is very much an instance of a book not being for me. I didn't expect the writing style here. It was very reminiscent of a literary style, with it leaving room for lots of thought. This is in no way a bad style. For what it's trying to be, it's very good. There's a lot of wandering room in the character's thoughts that let readers wrestle with the same things the characters are wrestling with, and it's just a very good exploration of the different ways of being lost on who you are. It also tackles parental idolization and how hard it is to tackle that they aren't always great people. I was worried the narrative would never really face how bad a person the dad was, but it didn't leave him unscathed. As someone who idolized a family member and am only as a grown up really seeing the damage done with that, it feels like a very important subject to tackle. Unfortunately, something about the literary style just never connects with me.

So I very much value what this book does, but in the end, there was always that distance from my distate with the style that made the book unable to resonate with me like it could have.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Empty Place
Olivia A. Cole

When Henry’s father goes missing, she is devastated. The whole town is amazed when her father mysteriously reappears from the forest, carrying a strange necklace. Henry is a little bit more apprehensive about his arrival. She has more questions than ever, like where he's been, how he get back and what’s up with the gift. Henry knows not to look a gift horse in the mouth but she can’t really help herself. She decides that she will go into the forest and find the answers she is looking for. But Henry could not even imagine the threatening world, she has to find her way back out without getting lost herself.

I liked the characters and the way the book was presented, it was easy to read and digest.

Thank you to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for this E-ARC.

[Rupert Nacoste · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every human being feels lost at some point in their life. What if, when that feeling is very strong, you would get pulled into another world. A world where all the people there are lost. Adults, children, even animals. A world where all those lost people have created and live in a community. A world where when that feeling of being lost goes away, the person disappears going back to their real existence.
That is what happens to Henry, a teenage girl whose father is an adventured and who Henry is trying to understand. Her struggle to understand her father gets so strong and confusing, it makes her feel lost. And that is how Henry ends up in "That Place."
Henry's struggle to figure out "That Place" and her father's connection to "That Place" is the story. Well told, with bits of magic that includes new people and a few animals that are both friendly and fearful. A nice read.

[Peggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book examines how to find who you are when you are lost. Henry finds herself in the land of the lost, trying to figure out where her dad was when he was lost for the past year. She has found herself silenced in that year by her mom who was dealing with the disappearance in her way but not helpful for her daughter. Can she figure out who she is in order to get back home? Is she the person her mom needs, her dad needs, or someone she us figuring out? Good middle school story.

I will have to say through most of the story I wasn't sure where we were going. I liked Henry and the friends she meets along the way.

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry (aka Henrietta) and her mom have just started to get over the loss of her dad, who disappeared the year before, when he stumbles out of the woods. Although his return is seen as miraculous, Henry has a lot of questions about where he's been and what he's been up to. When she sets off into the same woods where he was lost, she too loses her way - and finds a whole new world of lost people. Will she find the answers to her questions about her father or will she be stuck there forever?

It was hard to tell if what Henry was experiencing was real or fantasy - or if that mattered - but it was an interesting look at grief and parent-child relationships.

[Stacy Renee (LazyDayLit) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Middle-grade
Fantasy
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Henry is devastated when her father disappears into the forest on her birthday but a year later, he walks back out of the forest and gifts her with a strange necklace.
Determined to get answers, she takes the necklace and her father’s map and plunges into the same forest, finding herself in a lost place full of lost people who are looking for their way home.

This MG novel deals with themes of abandonment, loss, and grief to begin with but also seems to be about self-discovery and finding your own way in life.

Includes many diverse characters!

[Damien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early copy thanks to NetGalley...

Fantastic new read for all ages (my childhood is far behind me, but I don't wanna just read books about old heads). A little dash of fantasy, growing up, family mechanics, and getting lost when you don't even know where you're heading, Cole once again builds a gorgeous new world of ideas and interesting new characters, any of whom you'd be more than happy to follow on their own story.

I've been a loyal reader since the self-publishing days, and Cole deserves so many flowers for her talents at effortless world-building. You can see, smell, and feel the places her characters inhabit, from junky lots to the deep woods and the warm smells of a loving kitchen and beyond. An excellent read.

[PErvOL Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,25/4,5⭐️

[Breslin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Couldn’t put it down!

[Michaela Schujko · Rating 5 out of 5]

really good book I recommend

[Wiccy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Jeni Enjaian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just one of the many books that I read in 2025 and forgot to write a review of.

[novaslittlebookcorner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an interesting read! It was a sweet warm story exploring grief when losing someone, losing yourself in grief but also finding yourself. I loved the Alice in wonderland vibes in terms of how Henry finds her way to This Place or the group finds their way to Enola/Witch. The foresty background and secret people/town gave me the Wildwood vibe. The whole story felt like I was searching for myself in a maze. The writing was engaging and magical from the beginning and kept me hooked till the end! ......For more detailed review, feel free to visit my blog at
https://novaslittlebookcorner.wordpre...