I first met author Kristina McMorris at the Kentucky Book Festival back in 2018 when she was on book tour for Sold on a Monday. (I wrote a blog post about the festival and you can read that here.) She also had copies of this book, The Edge of Lost. My attention was immediately drawn to the cover; not only is it beautiful, it contains a picture of Alcatraz!

Alcatraz is a sentimental place for me. Sounds weird, I know. Let me explain. My parents took me to San Francisco when I was six-months-old. We didn’t visit Alcatraz at the time, but my mom said we saw it perched quite ominously out in the bay. When I became a reader, I mostly enjoyed true crime books and then pursued a career in the field. My mom always jokingly blamed that visit where I saw Alcatraz as the pivotal moment in my life that influenced those decisions.

In 2013, my husband and I vacationed in San Francisco and I finally got to tour the infamous Alcatraz prison. I absolutely loved it! It was so much smaller than I expected. Below are some snapshots from our trip.I selected pictures of locations that are mentioned in the book.

I purchased a signed copy of the The Edge of Lost at the book festival in 2018. Recently, I met Kristina a second time when she was on book tour for The Ways We Hide. (I wrote a blog post about that author event here.) During the question and answer portion of her presentation, Kristina shared that she and her mom visited Alcatraz while she was writing The Edge of Lost. She expressed complete fascination about The Rock and talked about how people who worked in the prison lived on the island with their families. This is known as ‘living on the reservation.’ Interestingly, there are still some federal institutions which offer staff housing on the grounds of the prison.

As for the book, The Edge of Lost, it’s AMAZING! Kristina opens the book with a tantalizing prologue describing a suspenseful event taking place on Alcatraz. I couldn’t stop thinking about that prologue while reading the story. I kept trying to figure out who the inmate character was and wondering how they ended up in prison.

The story of Shanley Keagan begins in Dublin, Ireland during the early 1900’s. He’s a young boy living with his maternal uncle. Shan’s life is rather dingy and quite difficult. He dreams of performing in vaudeville acts and going to America to find his real father. Unexpectedly, Shan is granted an opportunity to travel to America. He is faced with additional tragedies and must repeatedly find ways to survive.

Shan is a lovable character. I rooted for his success throughout the novel. Kristina knows how to pull at my heart strings and break my heart at the same time. She incorporated the book, The Count of Monte Cristo, into the part of the story that takes place on Alcatraz. I laughed the first time it was mentioned as it reminded me of the scene in the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, when Andy Dufrense and his crew are unpacking books. See the YouTube clip below.

Now I feel compelled to read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I seldom read classics, so we’ll see if my current interest is sustainable and I actually read the book.

The Edge of Lost was an incredible reading experience. I loved the story Kristina created and am grateful for her talented writing skills. This book will stay with me for a very long time.

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