Set in modern day UK, The Book Eaters is a dark and fantastical story about a family who literally consume books for sustenance and the lengths one woman will go to in order to protect her son, perfect for fans of Library at Mount Char, Vicious, and The Ten Thousand Doors of January.
The Family, one of the oldest lineages of Book Eaters, have everything they need: wealth, extra-human strength, and an endless supply of fairytales to feed their daughters.
Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.
Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon--like all other book eater women--is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories.
But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger--not for books, but for human minds.
THE BOOK EATERS is a contemporary fantasy debut. It's a story of motherhood, sacrifice, and hope; of queer identity and learning to accept who you are; of gilded lies and the danger of believing the narratives others create for you.
Publisher: Macmillan
Original Binding: Hardcover with dust jacket
Pages: 304 pages
ISBN-10: 1250810183
Item Weight: 1.1 lbs
Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.0 x 9.6 inches
Customer Reviews: 3 out of 5 stars 10,001 to 50,000 ratings
"I devoured this."--V. E. Schwab, NYT bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue
"Innovative, unique, poignant, and told with a voice as original as the story itself. I finished this novel in that one sitting, yet I'll be pondering it for a long time to come. This is the debut of a new master of the modern fantasy. Don't miss it."--James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestseller of The Starless Crown
"A beautiful, delicate, cruel, utterly unique look at tradition, motherhood, trauma, and what it means to be a monster. Nothing short of stunning."--Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author of Every Heart a Doorway
"Sunyi Dean's The Book Eaters is a darkly sweet pastry of a book about family, betrayal, and the lengths we go to for the ones we love. Great reading for a rainy morning, with tea or coffee on, a cat in your lap, and nowhere to be but lost in a delicious modern fairy tale."--Christopher Buehlman, author of The Blacktongue Thief
Sunyi Dean is an autistic SFF writer, and mother of two. Originally born in the States and raised in Hong Kong, she now lives in Yorkshire. When not reading, running, falling over in yoga, or rolling d20s, she sometimes escapes the city to wildswim in lonely dales. THE BOOK EATERS is her debut, and you can find her online @Blind_Nycteris.
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