The Invisible Hour

Stephen King calls Alice Hoffman's most recent New York Times bestseller a "wonderful story of love and growth" that honors the timeless enchantment of books.

When Mia Jacob loses hope for survival one June day, the power of words comes to her rescue. Though it was written almost 200 years ago, The Scarlet Letter seems to describe Mia's mother Ivy and their existence inside the Community, a repressive sect in western Massachusetts where communication with the outside world is prohibited. But how is this possible? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have expressed Mia's inner suffering and sorrow so well?

After experiencing heartache, love, and time, Mia is forced to give up the Community norms she was reared under. As she does, she discovers that reading has the power to take you to other places or bring them to you and that there are enigmatic ways in which authors and readers are impacted by one another. She discovers that love is more powerful than any bonds that may tie you and that time is more malleable than she ever thought.

Mia had a book crush when she was a little child. She travels back in time as a young lady and falls in love with a talented writer. However, what if The Scarlet Letter was never written by Nathaniel Hawthorne? And what if, on the day of her intended death, Mia Jacob never discovered it?

This is the tale of a single woman's fantasy from "the reigning queen of magical realism," Kristen Hannah, a New York Times bestselling novelist. It came true for a short while.