The Starless Sea

In this follow-up to Morgenstern’s magical debut, The Night Circus, grad student Zachary Ezra Rawlins discovers a mysterious book in his university library stacks containing loyal acolytes, key seekers, and lovers trapped in time, not to mention the story of a childhood incident wherein he finds a door painted on a wall but doesn’t risk going through. Smartly following enigmatic clues, he is led to a masquerade party, a woman dressed as Max from Where the Wild Things Are, and a storytelling man who rescues him from murderous pursuers and with whom he falls in love. And that leads him to a doorway opening on an ancient underground sanctuary, bordering on a starless sea, where he follows numerous threads to find out what his story really is as he fights to protect the stories already there, the stories interwoven with his own. What results is a magnificent quest, a sense of unfolding adventure and danger, gold-wrought fantasy, and endless provocation on what storytelling really means.