The Starless Sea
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the 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.
"[A] gorgeously written epic love story, filled with magic and mystery." —Popsugar
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.
- Pages
- 670
- First published
- November 5, 2019
- Language
- English
- Edition
- Ebook
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Shelved by 12 Litcadians
Reviews
Started June 9, 2025 · Finished July 9, 2025
- adventurousmysteriousSlow-paced
Started April 23, 2024 · Finished May 19, 2024
Interesting concepts, but the parts that dragged REALLY dragged.
Started December 30, 2024 · Finished December 31, 2024 · Read 5 times
- adventurousmysteriousSlow-paced
Started February 1, 2025 · Finished February 1, 2025
This book sat on my TBR for six years, and I wish I could say that I regret waiting so long to pick it up... but I can't. Let me be clear, I didn't dislike this book! But I had high hopes for it that I'm not sure it really filled. I'm actually not even going to rate it, because I think that I didn't fully grasp it on this first read-through; hopefully a future re-read will illuminate things that I didn't catch or understand and make the overall experience more enjoyable. To boil it down, I think my biggest issue with this book was how dense and literary it is. As you're reading, everything feels like a metaphor (it's even explicitly stated that certain things are metaphors) and it's difficult to figure out the meanings of all these things. There are threads that are opened and then never closed, relationships that aren't fully explored, and large aspects of world-building that felt glossed over to me. I'm not a big lit fic reader, so these were things that I found confusing and a bit frustrating. As for the positives... This book is intensely creative. The interspersed excerpts from short stories were super enjoyable, and many of the settings felt a bit magical and dreamlike (much as they were in The Night Circus). The vibes were vibing. Reading this also felt a bit like going on a treasure hunt; you knew that the breadcrumbs being put down were important, and when the story circled back around to those breadcrumbs, it felt oddly satisfying. I always wanted to know what each of these things was building to, even if I couldn't wrap my brain around the meanings of them. All in all, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I'd wanted to, but I have hope that coming back to it someday with the knowledge of where it goes will make it more enjoyable.
Finished November 11, 2021