The Starless Sea

NATIONAL BESTSELLER ΓÇó From the bestselling author of The Night Circus,a timeless love story set in a secret underground worldΓÇöa place of piratespaintersloversliarsand 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 pagesentranced by tales of lovelorn prisonerskey collectorsand nameless acolyteshe 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 recordedZachary uncovers a series of cluesΓÇöa beea keyand a swordΓÇöthat lead him to a masquerade party in New Yorkto a secret cluband 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 guardiansΓÇöit is a place of lost cities and seaslovers who pass notes under doors and across timeand of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realmrelinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archiveand also of those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabela fiercepink-haired protector of the placeand Doriana handsomebarefoot man with shifting alliancesZachary travels the twisting tunnelsdarkened stairwellscrowded ballroomsand sweetly soaked shores of this magical worlddiscovering his purposeΓÇöin both the mysterious book and in his own life.