Genre: Fantasy
Length: 512 pages
Audiobook Length: 18 hours and 37 minutes
First Published: 2019
View in Goodreads
Buy on Amazon
Publisher’s Description
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth.
What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction.
Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.
Quotes from The Starless Sea
Everyone wants the stars. Everyone wishes to grasp that which exists out of reach. To hold the extraordinary in their hands and keep the remarkable in their pockets.
Not all stories speak to all listeners, but all listeners can find a story that does, somewhere, sometime. In one form or another.
A boy at the beginning of a story has no way of knowing that the story has begun.
Having a physical reaction to a lack of book is not unusual.
Strange, isn’t it? To love a book. When the words on the pages become so precious that they feel like part of your own history because they are. It’s nice to finally have someone read stories I know so intimately.
Book Trailer for The Starless Sea
About Erin Morgenstern
Erin Morgenstern is the author of two novels: The Night Circus and The Starless Sea. She currently lives in Massachusetts with her husband. Visit the author’s website →
Featured In
