If it’s true that science is magic that works, then this marvellous book is brimful of the stuff, a terrifying majestic force that looks like sorcery but proves to be mind-bending physics. The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day tells the tale of a young girl who wakes one day to an empty house, her family vanished and a terrifying, enveloping blackness outside the front door, that appears to stretch into infinity.

Someone has been meddling with the workings of the universe, and it’s up to Maisie to unravel the mystery. Pythagoras believed the number ten to be the most important number in the world, and impressively, he invented maths using it. For this reason, Maisie Day is thrilled to reach her 10th birthday, and fervently hopes somebody gifts her a Build-Your-Own Nuclear Reactor Kit.

Smart as a whip, Maisie loves learning about the universe and is studying for a degree in maths and physics. So when she opens her front door to confront infinite black space, she’s better equipped to deal with it than most 10-year-olds.

Chillingly, the darkness crosses the threshold and begins to erase the house around it, lapping at Maisie’s heels as she rushes upstairs, silent forces beginning to warp the Space-Time continuum itself.

‘My house has turned into a palace of impossibilities.’

It sure has.

This brilliant book fizzes with big ideas. Christopher Edge simplifies complex physics and improbably interweaves it with a domestic backdrop of sibling resentment and jealousy. Maisie’s older sister, Lily, is a pivotal character and we find her at the very heart of the tale, in an unlikely brew of human emotion and hard science.

This is such a clever thriller. You will gasp at the plot twists and be proud of yourself for understanding the universe. Every step that we take ‘…we’re zooming through the vacuum of space into an ever-expanding universe. Life is an adventure.’

It’s true!

The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day is published by Christopher edge and Matt Saunders (illustrator), 176 pages.