Lost is a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire is an American writer. He is the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and many other novels for adults and children...

, based on A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...

 by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

Plot summary

Winifred Rudge, a writer, travels to London to visit a distant cousin, and to research a new novel about a woman haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

. When she arrives, she discovers that her cousin has vanished, his apartment (once owned by a common ancestor of theirs: a man who was supposedly the inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge

Ebenezer Scrooge

Ebenezer Scrooge is the principal character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which give people happiness...

) is being renovated, and strange sounds are coming from the chimney. It seems the apartment is now haunted by a strange supernatural presence.

Although the plot of the novel revolves around Winifred trying to chase down the ghost in her cousin's apartment, along the way a deep mystery that exists between Winifried and her cousin, John Comestor, is revealed. While trying to solve the mystery Winifried is forced to face the ghosts of her own past and examine her choices and motivations.