Bestselling author Hazel Gaynor is back with a new novel — Before Dorothy.
Gaynor’s latest book, which enters the world of The Wizard of Oz and explores the events that led Dorothy to the front door of her aunt Emily Gale, is set to be published on June 17, 2025. PEOPLE can exclusively reveal the cover and a short excerpt from the book.
“Long before Dorothy visits Oz, her aunt Emily Gale sets off on her own grand adventure, leaving gritty Chicago behind for Kansas and a life that will utterly change her,” says the book’s official synopsis. In Kansas, Emily faces a world disrupted by drought, dust storms and a personal tragedy that leaves her beloved niece on their doorstep. “When the past catches up with the present and old secrets are exposed, Emily fears she will lose the most cherished thing of all: Dorothy.”
Award-winning author Gaynor writes historical fiction and fantasy that addresses major events in the 20th century, especially with an Irish connection. Her latest novel, The Last Lifeboat, was a Times of London historical novel of the month and a 2024 Audie winner for Best Fiction Narrator.
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Get to know Gaynor’s “most ambitious novel to date” in an exclusive excerpt shared with PEOPLE, below.
The shrill blast of the whistle signaled their departure, and the locomotive strained to pull away from the station, making the carriage jolt. Emily’s heart lurched with it as Dorothy sat quietly beside her, her head stuck in a book about Amelia Earhart’s Atlantic flight. The book was called 20 Hrs. 40 min. the title being the exact duration of Earhart’s groundbreaking flight.
“She’s very brave, isn’t she, Miss Earhart,” Emily offered. “I’m not sure I like the idea of being up in the sky.”
Dorothy turned the pages, looking at the pictures more than reading the text. “I think it would be wonderful! I think she’s wonderful.”
Emily thought about the long journey ahead for Dorothy, and how oblivious she was to the fact that the life she might have known was slipping away behind her while an uncertain future stretched out along the tracks ahead.
Emily’s hand strayed to her coat pocket where her fingers found the small lump of rock she still kept there. She remembered the feel of it in her pinafore pocket as she’d travelled toward a new life as a child, the tug and pull of its weight as their immigration cards were stamped. That little rock tied her back to Ireland, to her granny and her mother, whose steady guidance and wisdom she longed for more than ever as the train picked up speed.
“Hold out your hand, Dorothy.”
“What is it?” Dorothy asked, inspecting the green stone.
“Lift it up to the sunlight. See how it sparkles?”
Dorothy gasped. “Is it a diamond?”
“It’s Connemara marble. Irish Green, they call it back in Ireland. Those are crystals, millions of years old.”
“Is it really all the way from Ireland?”
“Yes, and every piece is unique,” Emily explained. “Each one different to the next. There’s no other piece like this anywhere in the world.” It was as precious to Emily as any of Annie’s glittering jewels.
Dorothy turned the rock over in her hands. “The only one in the world.”
Like you, Emily thought as she looked at the child, her hair tied into bunches with powder blue ribbons. She was so like Annie it was as if she was hewn from her, like the piece of Connemara marble pulled from Ireland’s ancient earth.
She curled Dorothy’s fingers around the little rock. “Keep it. A piece of Ireland, to take with you to Kansas.”
Dorothy showed the little emerald stone to her lion and tin man. “We’re on the way to Kansas now,” she said, her voice small and quiet. “To our new home.”
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Home.
Emily had always thought of home as a temporary thing; a place she stayed in for a while, but would inevitably leave. She’d never allowed herself to get attached; didn’t quite know how to get attached to a place. Her mammy always said it was people who mattered, not places or things. It’s family that makes a home. The rest is just bricks and mortar, a plot of land, a pin in the map.
The only place she’d ever felt she truly belonged was Kansas, with Henry, and she couldn’t wait to get back to them both.
So why, as the locomotive picked up speed, did she have such a terrible sense of foreboding?
Excerpted from Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor. Copyright © 2025 by Hazel Gaynor. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Before Dorothy comes out June 17, 2025 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
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