The Starless Sea

A timeless love tale set in a hidden subterranean realm full of pirates, artists, lovers, liars, and ships that sail a starless sea comes from the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus.

Graduate student Zachary Ezra Rawlins finds a strange book stashed in the shelves while studying in Vermont. He reads stories of nameless acolytes, key collectors, and lovelorn captives as he flips through the pages, but then he comes across an odd one: a narrative from his own early years. Zachary, perplexed by this mysterious book and eager to understand how his own life ended up on paper, finds a string of clues—a sword, a key, and a bee—that take him to a secret club, a masquerade party in New York, and a doorway that opens up to an old library buried deep beneath the earth. Zachary discovers that this strange area is more than just a graveyard for books and their keepers; it is a place of lost towns and oceans, of lovers who exchange letters across ages and beneath doors, and of ghostly tales told by the dead. Zachary discovers that there are those who are out to destroy this archive as well as individuals who have made great sacrifices to defend it, including giving up their tongues and sight. Zachary explores the winding tunnels, shadowy stairwells, packed ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the area, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances. It is through these adventures that Zachary finds his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.