| This article is about Book 1: Keeper of the Lost Cities, the first book in the series. You may be looking for Keeper of the Lost Cities, the full series, or Keeper of the Lost Cities (Movie), the live-action film adaptation. |
Keeper of the Lost Cities is the first book in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series written by Shannon Messenger. It was released on October 2, 2012.
Cover
The cover shows Sophie and Dex at the illegal light leaping crystal (which is a streetlamp) in Paris, France. They are wearing their Level 2 Foxfire uniforms.
Synopsis
A New York Times bestselling series
A USA TODAY bestselling series
A California Young Reader Medal–winning series
In this riveting series opener, a telepathic girl must figure out why she is the key to her brand-new world before the wrong person finds the answer first.
Twelve-year-old Sophie has never quite fit into her life. She’s skipped multiple grades and doesn’t really connect with the older kids at school, but she’s not comfortable with her family, either. The reason? Sophie’s a Telepath, someone who can read minds. No one knows her secret—at least, that’s what she thinks…
But the day Sophie meets Fitz, a mysterious (and adorable) boy, she learns she’s not alone. He’s a Telepath, too, and it turns out the reason she has never felt at home is that, well…she isn’t. Fitz opens Sophie’s eyes to a shocking truth, and she is forced to leave behind her family for a new life in a place that is vastly different from what she has ever known.
But Sophie still has secrets, and they’re buried deep in her memory for good reason: The answers are dangerous and in high demand. What is her true identity, and why was she hidden among humans? The truth could mean life or death—and time is running out.[1]
Plot
In the first scene, Sophie is caught listening to music in class on her iPod during a field trip. The teacher, Mr. Sweeney, scolds her and continues the class. Sophie doesn't follow. She spots a boy who, in her words, is "by far the cutest boy she'd ever seen," reading a newspaper about her. He asks who she is, and they have a quick, awkward conversation before being interrupted by a crowd of kindergartners. Their shrill mental voices overwhelm both she and the boy, and they both find out the other is a Telepath. The boy introduces himself as Fitz. Sophie runs away from Fitz, scared, but almost gets run over by a car in a street highway in the process. Fitz helps her escape to a secluded area, to which he reveals that she is an elf.
Fitz then takes her to the Lost Cities, the cities of the elves, and Sophie is forced to leave the human world. After meeting Alden, Fitz's father, Sophie realizes her family isn't her own and she will have to leave them. Sophie is forced to then drug her family with sleeping gas, taking all her important or sentimental objects, mainly Ella, her bright blue stuffed elephant, so that her parents can have her erased from their memories. She then is immersed in the Lost Cities. Her life is good, but things quickly become strange—and a bit dangerous. She makes quite a few friends, including Keefe Sencen, Dex Dizznee, and Biana Vacker, sister to Fitz. Also having some people disliking her like Stina Heks.
For the most part, Sophie is just another prodigy at Foxfire. She hides her ability to not raise concerns among her peers. Sophie does end up causing quite a bit of incidents as a student in Foxfire. Eventually she settles into a new normal for her new life.
She also takes in an imp as a pet and names him Iggy. As soon as things were about to get normal, she gets a deadly allergic reaction to limbium, causing her foster parents, Grady and Edaline Ruewen, to become more protective over her. She is soon subject to her foster parents canceling her adoption, as well as multiple fights with her friends.
Sophie is becoming more aware of how much of a problem the fires in the Forbidden Cities are, and despite promising to Alden that she wouldn't do anything drastic; Sophie follows the Black Swan's instructions to bottle the fire to prove it is Everblaze. This causes Sophie to have to face a Tribunal as her new life is crumbling.
After finding out that Biana had become friends with her at the urging of Alden, Sophie runs away to a cave and hides there, but Dex follows her. They are kidnapped by who they think to rebel group the Black Swan (which in later books is the Neverseen) and tortured for information while the Lost Cities is led to believe that they are dead and hold funerals for them at the Wanderlings, an elven graveyard.
Then, Sophie's ex-neighbor, Mr. Forkle rescues them, but not for long. Dex and Sophie find themselves abandoned on the streets of Paris, France, and have to find their way back home with the help of a mysterious note. They are again found by the kidnappers, and Sophie discovers that one of them is the elf who tried to take her, back when she lived with humans.
Finally, Sophie inflicts on everyone and light leaps away with a hidden leaping crystal. However, as she is leaping, Sophie uses too much concentration to help Dex and ends up almost fading away. They are saved by Fitz, whom Sophie desperately transmitted to for help, as well as Keefe and Biana.
While Sophie is fading, Fitz becomes able to enter her consciousness and transmit thoughts to her, something only a few Black Swan members were able to do before. When Sophie wakes up, she is in a bedroom at Everglen, the Vackers' estate, and a goblin bodyguard named Sandor has been assigned to protect her.
But she still needs to do a Tribunal. During the Tribunal Sophie was sorry for her actions, and she is adopted by Grady and Edaline once again, and the book ends with the narrator saying, "Sophie Foster was going home."
Illustrated and Annotated Edition
As of August 4, 2020, Shannon Messenger released 'Keeper of the Lost Cities Illustrated and Annotated Edition.’ It is a special edition of the first book, with never-before-seen embellishments by the author herself.
Contents
- Sixteen black and white illustrations
- Five deleted scenes
- Author Annotations
Video Trailer
References
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