The False Child
The summer after seventh grade was supposed to be uneventful. Long days. Lazy afternoons. A derelict building on a hill, long forgotten. But when a baseball sails over a rusted fence and into the grounds of the abandoned Fairfield Children’s Home, curiosity pulls a group of friends toward a place the town has spent decades trying to forget. Yet something still lives beneath the cracked boards and tangled roots, something that remembers the children who never came home. When a child goes missing, old wounds reopen, and the difference between what was lost and what returned becomes impossible to ignore. In Fairfield, not all children grow up. Some are taken. And some come back changed.
246 pages
English edition · First published 2026 by Broken Brain Books · ISBN 9781970383041
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Ratings and reviews
When bullied 13 year old Ethan is asked to play base ball by his older sister Julie. NO ONE expects him to hit a home run.. but he does. Sending the ball straight through an abandoned orphanage open window. When the bullying doesn’t stop. He goes in to the orphanage to retrieve the ball. Then the unthinkable happens. Normal Ethan went in, but the same didn’t come out. Can the neighborhood figure out what’s going on before it’s too late. My opinion: I felt like I read this before, Deja vu?.. the story has a coming of age and folklore quality to it. Which I appreciate. The characters work off each other. Bullying. Crushes. Siblings. It did have a few scene which I didn’t care for. So check your triggers. Other than that it was a decent story. I enjoyed it.
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