Wow, what a book. I’d only read Keren David’s CUCKOO before I read this one, and this was a completely different novel that gripped me as soon as I read the blurb. It’s historical and contemporary, with mystery and romance thrown in – I was kind of mad when I got halfway through and had to stop reading because I needed to get off the train and go into work. I haven’t read many YA books set in Canada, but it felt like the perfect location for the novel – Astor is a small town that in 1904 is surrounded by forest, and as such feels isolated: an excellent setting for the mysteries that unravel. STRANGER is split between two narrators – Emmy, a girl in early 1900s Canada, and Megan, Emmy’s great-granddaughter from England in the 1990s. Emmy’s story concerns her meeting a mysterious boy who has stumbled out of the forest, bloody and naked and suffering from memory loss, and Megan is visiting her family in Canada while trying to get over her ex-boyfriend and hiding something deep inside her. Pretty different plots, right? They seem that way to start with, but soon it becomes apparent just how much Emmy and Megan are alike, and how their stories relate to each other. Everything eventually ties together in a satisfying, cathartic way. Emmy and Megan are great characters – sometimes split narratives annoy me when I can’t connect to one of the voices, but I didn’t have that issue with this book. I was quickly sucked into their stories, eager to find out what secrets they hid. Slight tangent here: the guys in this are super cute. The mysterious boy, Tom, is like a lost puppy. And I have a weakness for lost puppies. Especially lost puppies with something to hide, and lost puppies with dark pasts…OK, this isn’t really working any more – but he’s adorable, in a sad way. And Sam, a boy Megan meets while in Astor, is like, the exact kind of cute grungy arty boy that I like. Puppies and grunge, guys. To put it simply, I like the guys in this book. Yes, I am shallow. There’s a sweet love story at the heart of STRANGER – so sweet, in fact, that it made me want to cry. This book made me want to cry a LOT. Basically, it just made me really emotional. There’s a lot of stuff about family, and about first loves, and about secrets, and about truth. If this all sound quite vague, it’s because I don’t want to spoil it – little reveals are peppered throughout the story like a trail of breadcrumbs, and it’s best to go in as blind as possible to get the best experience. If you enjoy twisting historical mystery novels with sweet, emotional hearts, then STRANGER is for you. Perfect for curling up with – try and read this in one sitting, as wanting to know the answers will drive you up the wall if you have to stop in the middle of it (as I did).