A surreal, dreamlike liminal space novel — Book 1 of The Train Between Worlds trilogy
The Train Between Worlds: Lost on an Endless Train Where Realities Blur, Memories Surface, and Every Choice Reveals Who You Truly Are
You wake on a train with no name, no past, and a ticket that reads: Destination Unknown.
One moment the windows show landscapes; the next, dreamscapes where logic fractures. Every passenger hides something, every door opens on another mystery, and the train itself feels alive. Then there's Lumi — who appears and vanishes like smoke and seems to know the path you forgot you were on.
For: readers who want to be lost on purpose.
The Train Between Worlds is set entirely in an in-between place: an endless train whose windows show landscapes one moment and dreamscapes the next. Every door opens on another mystery, and the train itself feels alive, a setting that's a character. It is liminal fiction for readers who like being lost on purpose.
You wake with no memory and a ticket that reads Destination Unknown. It is a who-am-I novel and an inner journey, where every passenger hides something, nothing is quite as it seems, and identity surfaces one fragment at a time. Lumi, who appears and vanishes like smoke, seems to know the path you forgot you were on.
If you loved the strange, beautiful architecture of Piranesi, the doors and stories of The Starless Sea, or the spirit train of Spirited Away, this is a quiet, philosophical fantasy for adults that doesn't feel like epic fantasy. It begins a trilogy that's already complete, so you can read straight through.
A complete trilogy: all 3 books are out now.
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The original dreamlike train between worlds, and the inspiration for a century of them.
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Yes. The whole novel takes place aboard an endless train between realities, and its corridors and doors work like liminal spaces. See our liminal space novels list for more.
Yes. It is Book 1. The Memory Fare and The Forty-Year Passenger follow it, and each new passenger's story builds on what the earlier books reveal about the train.
The Train Between Worlds by Simran Mehta is on Amazon as a Kindle ebook ($3.99).
