Three Years with the Rat

“A mind-warping thriller that will make you question reality. One of the most assured and haunting debuts.” —Blake Crouch, New York Times–bestselling author of Dark Matter

After several years of drifting between school and go-nowhere jobs, a young man is drawn back into the big city of his youth. The magnet is his beloved older sister, Grace: always his hero, now she's a promising graduate student in psychophysics and the center of a group of friends who take “Little Brother” into their fold.

But it soon becomes clear that things are not well with Grace. Always acerbic, she now veers into sudden rages that are increasingly directed at her adoring boyfriend, John, who is also her fellow researcher. When Grace disappears, and John shortly thereafter, the narrator makes an astonishing discovery in their apartment: a box big enough to crawl inside, a lab rat, and a note that says This is the only way back for us. Soon he embarks on a mission to discover the truth, a pursuit that forces him to question time and space itself, and ultimately toward a perilous confrontation at the very limits of imagination.

“Memento meets Looper with a touch of Ray Bradbury. Time will slip by as you read this story . . . and that will only frighten you more.” ―James Renner, author of The Great Forgetting

“A remarkable blend of mystery, family drama, love story, and time travel narrative, Jay Hosking's debut novel is masterful indeed.” ―Annabel Lyon, author of The Sweet Girl

“[A] startlingly fine performance . . . . succeeds brilliantly, drawing us completely into a labyrinthine narrative.” ―Booklist (starred review)

“A potent, sophisticated combination of science-fiction novel and psychological thriller.” ―Kirkus Reviews