Our Missing Hearts

The New York Times bestseller from the author of Little Fires Everywhere, a deeply heart-wrenching novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn't know what happened to her — only that her books have been banned-and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him.

Then one day, Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of heroic librarians, and finally to New York City, where he will finally learn the truth about what happened to his mother, and what the future holds for them both.

Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It's about the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and the power of art to create change.

'Governments are right to fear words. They can change hearts and topple tyrannies .... It's impossible not to be moved by Margaret Miu's courage, or to applaud her craftiness ... And Bird is a brave and believable character, who gives us a relatable portal into a world that seems more like our own every day' — Stephen King, New York Times

'As lyrical as it is chilling, as astonishing as it is empathic, Our Missing Hearts arguably achieves literary perfection' — Booklist (starred review)

ISBN: 9780349145167 | Published: 26 April 2023 (first published 2022) | Paperback | 352 pages