New York Times bestseller Named a best book of the year by The Guardian Good Housekeeping
Real Simple and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel From the New York Times bestselling author of
The Night Circus a timeless love story set in a secret underground world-a place of pirates
painters lovers liars and ships that sail upon a starless sea. 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.
