Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children #3) by Seanan McGuire

I've read the Wayward Children books in a topsy turvy manner, starting with Down Among the Sticks and Bones, then Every Heart a Doorway (I actually bought another book with a similar title thinking it was this one, and by the time I figured it out, had "Sticks and Bones" in my hands so read that first). The only one I've read in order is this, and I'm so glad I did, because it answered a lot of questions I had from Down Among the Sticks and Bones.

Children disappear for a number of reasons, some nefarious, some with an element of magic. That there are doorways between worlds is accepted, thanks to wardrobes, subtle knives, portals, and other devices so many of us have come across in literature. (I personally believe books are gateways, too, but that's another story.) Sometimes those of us who leave one world and enter a different one can stay there, sometimes we come back for one reason or another, sometimes we long to return to that other place-- to find the doorway to take us back. Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, provides a place for those wishing to return to their new world from their home world of Earth, r wait for a new door to open.

In the second book in the series, we were introduced to Eleanor West's home and some of the students living there. This book doesn't exactly take up where that one left off, though it does take place after in time. What it does do is focus on some of the other students, peripheral in the original story, and weave a story where they go on a rescue mission, taking them to a couple of other worlds.

Again, a fascinating story -- one which proves there is a place for each of us, and that maybe it's true: those who live in gingerbread houses seem to have cold, cruel hearts.

The book is due out January 8, 2018.

Thanks to friends at Tor for sending me this advanced readers copy. You're the best!

From the publisher:
Beneath the Sugar Sky returns to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. At this magical boarding school, children who have experienced fantasy adventures are reintroduced to the "real" world.

Sumi died years before her prophesied daughter Rini could be born. Rini was born anyway, and now she’s trying to bring her mother back from a world without magic.