It seems like I, and many others I'm sure, have been waiting for Erin Morgenstern to publish this book forever. Well it has been almost a decade since she published the incomparable "The Night Circus". Did she have the second book jitters? Was she worried that the second book could never live up to and amazing reception "The NIght Circus" received? Who knows? Who cares? THE STARLESS SEA is here!
This is a first edition, first printing, published by HARVILL SECKER VINTAGE in 2019. Erin has signed it on the title page.
Physically this is a beautiful book. A bee splashed in gold on a swirly blue background on the cover. A gold key imposed over a stunning marble like background on the back cover. A gold sword on the spine, and all three images printed on the page ends.
Here is a synopsis -
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a strange book hidden in the library 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 a subterranean 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 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.