Fourteen-year-old Seb Franck disappears, leaving nothing but an email promising an explanation later. The family is in shock. Seb seemed happy. Running out the door to skateboard with friends, roaming local parks, building computers while singing to himself in the basement.

Seb “knows nothing about life on the street,” his parents tell the police when they arrive at their door. He still (secretly) loves Star Wars. Their only comfort is knowing Seb will not last a day on his own before he is caught or comes home with his tail between his legs.

Their son, however, does not come home. He explains why in a series of emails that neither the police nor an “internet detective” hired by his parents can trace. Emails which reveal a boy thoroughly confused and disappointed by his own species.

When his parents receive an email announcing their son’s intention to stay away indefinitely, they begin to blame each other in earnest But they hang together, because they must. Their perseverance finally pays off with the first real clue.

Seb’s father convinces his wife to let him go after their son, solely on the basis of a hunch and this one vague clue. Seb’s mother and young sister are left to manage the war room in the kitchen at home. The father plunges deeper and deeper into a plan his wife would never have allowed, had he told her everything he knew. Or, rather, everything he did not know.

Hide is the story of a family desperate to find a lost son. It is also the story of a boy with an audacious plan to save himself. At turns suspenseful, comic and philosophical, Hide always returns to questions posed by a boy alone in a room. How have we become so lost, so detached from nature? So stupid about a planet we depend upon completely? How will he, or any of us, find our way back?

Available soon through Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble. Sign up to be notified when you can get a copy of Hide.