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Anchor Books

The Starless Sea: A Novel

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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. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage


Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 4, 2020


Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Print length ‏ : ‎ 592 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 110197138X


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 83


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.22 x 1.11 x 7.96 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #13,415 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #60 in Historical Fantasy (Books) #263 in Romantic Fantasy (Books) #341 in Action & Adventure Fantasy (Books)


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • One of the best books I’ve read in a very long time!
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern is such a joy to read! Her storying telling is completely enveloping. I’m trying hard not to burn through the book too quickly. I savor it and take time to reflect after each couple of chapters. Thank you for writing this lovely book.
Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2026 by Carol
    • Worth the wait!
Format: Kindle
I am a huge fan of The NIght Circus and I have been eagerly waiting for Ms. Morgenstern to write a second book. Having now read The Starless Sea, I can understand why it took her eight years to craft this amazing and imaginative story. For the first half of this book I was planning to say that The Starless Sea was superior to The Night Circus. But the story bogged down for me and I had trouble fully understanding what was going on. I still don’t understand part of what was going on, but the ending was nice and not as confusing. As noted by other reviewers, this may be a book that you have to read a couple of times to grasp all the plot lines. This is such a fantastical story that a brief summary is challenging. Graduate student Zachary Ezra Rawlins, is an avid gamer and reader. And the son of a fortune teller. He finds a mysterious book of fairy tales in the university library. At least he thought he was reading fairy tales until one of the chapters describes an event that happened to him as a young boy when he found a hidden door but did not go through it. Intrigued and disturbed, he tries to figure out more about this book. This leads him to a literary masquerade ball in NYC and a meeting with a mysterious woman named Mirabel. There are also symbolic clues of swords, bees, keys, door knobs, and other things. This leads him to a romance, a secret society that may be up to no good, and finally to an elevator ride below the earth to a hidden library and the people who protect it. But nothing and no one is as it seems. Or maybe it is. And time does not work in the way it does above ground. While Zachary is experiencing this magical world, his almost-friend Kat is searching for him because he has been missing for some time. And that’s not the half of it! I continue to be blown away by Ms. Morgenstern’s phenomenal imagination. She creates and beautifully describes whole gorgeous worlds. One thing that I appreciate is that the author is able to balance her writing to give enough of a description of a place or thing while still leaving room for the reader to form their own images. Ms. Morgenstern also pays homage to other books (particularly Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the Narnia series), authors, readers, and players of fantasy world role-play computer games. I gave this four stars because I was getting irritated and impatient with the book about three-quarters of the way through. In some parts it was too confusing to hold my interest. In fairness, I always struggle to understand books that involve alternate experiences of the passage of time. It’s over my head. Also, I think that this is a book that is best read in large chunks. That would give the reader a great immersion experience as well as it may be easier to keep track of what is going on. My schedule refused to cooperate with large chunks of reading time. None of this means that this book is not worth reading. It is still a really good piece of fantasy. I also think that you can see that Ms. Morgenstern has matured as a writer with prose that perfectly fit the story being told. I will certainly read her third book, even if I have to wait another eight years! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2019 by SassyPants
    • Enchanting. A must read.
Format: Hardcover
The Starless Sea is a love story. First to books, and then a place, and then a person. The novel unfolds itself to reveal stories within stories, worlds within worlds, meanings within meanings. Everything is exactly as it appears and nothing is as it seems. Metaphors exist in their own right, and yet represent something greater than themselves. Morgenstern wields the power to reignite the childlike wonder of believing that there really is magic in the world, just beyond what your eyes can see. You find yourself searching for signs of your own magical door; an invitation to another world that you never quite noticed but always knew was there. As in the Night Circus, Morgenstern masterfully creates a setting, a place, that is itself alive and becomes a driving and integral character in the story. Rather than unfolding in linear time, The Starless Sea takes you on a journey through layered myths and tales that circle and turn back into one another. Time takes on a new shape; a new meaning. If the story itself were not enough to entice you, the prose is worth the read on its own. Enchantingly written, it at once draws you deep (deep) into the story while also delighting you with surprising turns of phrase and singular descriptors. As Morgenstern takes you on a winding path into a world nested within hidden passage ways and protected secrets, where everything is alive with stories, you find that there is another story being added to the depths and layers. Your own. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2020 by coffeekid
    • "A boy at the beginning of a story has no way of knowing that the story has begun"
Format: Hardcover
Overall: I have very mixed thoughts on this book. I felt completely absorbed in it and absolutely loved the writing. The author writes like a painting, everything is so descriptive and lyrical it is hard to not be enthralled. That being said, I wanted more plot and more character depth and found both to be lacking. Still, an enjoyable read but would give this a 3.5/5 or a 6.5/10 overall. Summary: “A boy at the beginning of a story has no way of knowing that the story has begun.” Zachary Ezra Rollins is a fortune-teller's son, gay, a bibliophile and lover of cocktails, and a graduate student studying video games when he comes across a book called Sweet Sorrows. The book includes a passage intimately describing a moment from his actual childhood that Zachary becomes obsessed with it and reads it compulsively. He becomes obsessed with the need to reach the Starless Sea, a mysterious otherworld that he failed to enter as a child when he turned away from a painted door. The story follows Zachary’s adventures of getting to and once he is in the Starless Sea. The Good: “It doesn't look like anything special, like it contains an entire world, though the same could be said of any book.” The writing in this book is exquisite. The different fairytales and fables that intersperse the novel are lovely and this book really lives up to the power of storytelling. I felt completely engrossed in the writing and found myself rereading sections just to experience the beautiful writing again. This book succeeds in capturing you, transporting you to another world, and holding you in. I also loved the mystery and how most things come together by the end. For all those reasons, I loved it. The Bad: Very fragmented and disjointed throughout the whole book. I think the author may have tried a bit too hard to make this unique and I felt it suffered as a result. There are a dozen or so narratives all interspersed into one book and every chapter is different so you never know where it may lead. My other major issue with this book were the characters, and Zachary especially. Zachary Ezra Rawlins (and his entire name is used in the beginning of every chapter about him just in case we forget who he is… which you can’t!) is the star of “The Starless Sea” but only because he is fated to be. I did not feel that I grew to know or love him, and was surprised by this given the amazing writing. I did not feel connected to Zachary or really any other character and this may have been a result of too many narratives competing with one another. Favorite Quotes: “Strange, isn’t it? To love a book. When the words on the pages become so precious that they feel like part of your own history because they are. It’s nice to finally have someone read stories I know so intimately.” “Everyone is a part of a story, what they want is to be part of something worth recording” “Not all stories speak to all listeners, but all listeners can find a story that does, somewhere, sometime. In one form or another.” Everyone wants the stars. Everyone wishes to grasp that which exists out of reach. To hold the extraordinary in their hands and keep the remarkable in their pockets.” “We are all stardust and stories.” “Be brave,” she says. “Be bold. Be loud. Never change for anyone but yourself. Any soul worth their star-stuff will take the whole package as is and however it grows. Don’t waste your time on anyone who doesn’t believe you when you tell them how you feel.” “But the world is strange and endings are not truly endings no matter how the stars might wish it so.” “This is not where our story ends, he writes. This is only where it changes.” ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2020 by bill greene

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