The Starless Sea

A Novel

By: Erin Morgenstern

Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman, full cast

Length: 18 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

From the New York Times best-selling 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.

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 by Dominic Hoffman, with a full cast:

Dominic Hoffman reading the Zachary Ezra Rawlins storyline
Dion Graham reading the Sweet Sorrows storyline
Bahni Turpin reading excerpts from the Secret Diary of Katrina Hawkins
Fiona Hardingham reading The Ballad of Simon and Eleanor
Allan Corduner reading Fortunes and Fables
Jorjeana Marie reading Another place, another time

©2019 Erin Morgenstern (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Erin Morgenstern has magic to make...the author returns with a new fantastical fairy-tale for grown-ups.... Comparisons to the likes of Tolkien, Carroll, and C.S. Lewis abound. The Starless Sea poses big questions about stories - the ones we read, the ones we live, and the ones we tell ourselves. And at the heart of her work lies the themes that have provoked those comparisons: redemption, sacrifice, fate, time, reincarnation.... We’re willing to bet the embrace of this deeper, darker, more complex follow-up novel might be close to a sure thing. As Morgenstern posits, The Starless Sea is a door to another world - one just waiting for readers to open it." (Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly)

"Anyone who’s read Erin Morgenstern’s wildly successful fiction debut, The Night Circus, knows how meticulously she crafts her imaginary worlds...the reader [is] immersed in a multitude of stories, the threads of which gradually weave together to a haunting conclusion." (NPR)

"A high-wire feat of metatextual derring-do [and] a stunning array of linked fables, myths and origin stories.... It is exquisitely pleasurable to watch the gears of this epic fantasy turn once they're set in motion. As in The Night Circus, Morgenstern is at her best when she imagines worlds and rooms and parties in vivid detail.... This novel is a love letter to readers as much as an invitation: Come and see how much magic is left in the world. Fans of Neil Gaiman and V. E. Schwab, Kelly Link and Susanna Clarke will want to heed the call. An ambitious and bewitching gem of a book with mystery and passion inscribed on every page." (Kirkus Reviews starred review)

Just couldn't make it

It's always a bit of a challenge to parse reader reviews when there is such a dramatic rating disparity, i.e. The Starless Sea is best book God has ever written or it's a dumpster dive. And in this case it's neither. It's a good story that needs slash and burn editing. The story itself unfolds with a wonderfully fascinating premise only to fade somewhere around the halfway point into road weary tedium. Plot and character "wandering" in combination with the lack of a firm-handed editor just wore me out. Didn't really care what happened, why or what's coming next. Think through-line or lack thereof. It's a shame, because somewhere in here is a compelling tale. Not a huge spoiler to tell of the plot element of a magical (?) otherworldly subterranean library with an almost infinite number of spaces, doors and passages. It's as if the author was so intrigued with this limitless quantum structure that she wanted us to explore all of it with an ever diminishing sense of purpose or meaning.

A Story in a Story About Stories

Before reading this, it is important to know that it is a very stylized piece of art. Not everyone who looks at it will understand it, and not everyone who understands it will like it. This being said, I found the experience to be mystifying and amazing. The author definitely captures a magical feeling of being "lost" within a story, wrapping several parts of the story in layered metaphors, and often times making the reader feel as lost as the characters themselves.

The Starless Sea is an experience of a story, and like many stories about literature, it plays with the idea of storytelling. This creative storytelling creates a polarizing experience. Near the end of the book is a very confusing sequence of events- told in a very unusual manner, and it is at this point where several readers became lost, and put down this adventure altogether.

I would recommend this book to readers who want a challenge, who want to experience a dark magical world, and to those who appreciate a more avant-garde literary experience.

This door isn't for everyone, but opening it will lead to one of your favorite, or maybe least favorite books.

Loved Night Circus, but...

I'll start off with, I adore The Night Circus and was thrilled to see a new book by Morgenstern. The narration for Starless Sea is lovely, and we were off to a good start. However, by about halfway in, I was too disengaged in the story to want to finish. This is a pity, because I wanted this story so badly. The dialogue is stilted, and the stories within stories within stories, rather than nesting like dolls, bounced me around too much to really become invested. I so wish I enjoyed this, but I simply couldn't finish.

Timeless

This story is about stories in a library that's not a library, in a world underground with a honey sea and a starless night. It's about a boy who's now a man. It's about time yet it is timeless. Beginnings that are ends.

Don't delve into this book half hearted. Let it sink in and immerse you. It's complex and beautiful. I will perhaps re-read this in a year and it will be a new story with a familiar scent.

Almost there....and then...Not.

This is the first time I have left a review and I have listened to hundreds of books. The story has all of the elements and then...it turns in to a pedantic, dialoguing fever dream. It has a lot of great possibilities but never gets to a concrete story.

Favorite book of 2019!

Wow wow wow! This book has been a long time coming and it did not disappoint! It was magical and whimsical and sad and beautiful and I absolutely loved it! The writing was so similar to The Night Circus and it just flowed around me. I got lost in the story and didn't want it to end. The characters were so well done, Zachary and Dorian, Mirabel and Allegra, and all the side characters. The little tales interspersed were great and really added to the overall feeling of the story.
I loved this and cannot recommend it enough! The audio was great, the different narrators in different parts made it pop and helped me tell when we were transitioning.

hated the narrator

I loved The Night Circus and pre-ordered this sight unseen, but I wish I had waited until I heard a sample. I actually can't tell you how the story is because I couldn't get past the first chapter. The narrator does the dreaded Reading Voice, in which every word is a breathless jewel to be savored individually, with lots of extra commas thrown in to make sure you can never just lose yourself in the story. I'll get this one in print form and wish I could return the audio version.

To those who believe in magic,

The Starless Sea is a love story penned to those of us who have never chased the white rabbit to its hole, never unlocked our magic wardrobe, never received our letter to Hogwarts, and never stole a Tardis.

I have daydreamed a book to write such as this one and Erin Morgenstern conjured my dreams into her own penmanship.

This tale is not for everyone, yet- for those of you always checking the cupboards and under the stairs just incase magic would sweep you away- what feels personally mine and certainly hers and can now be yours also.

4 hours left..I just can’t keep going

I wanted to love this like the night circus but dang. It’s long, confusing, and sooooo slow! Deleted after the 12 hour-ish mark.

Perfection

The Night Circus took my breath away. I have, ever since, simultaneously yearned for and feared a second offering from the author. Could they catch lightning in a bottle twice? What if Jim Dale played too big a part in the magic, and not getting him back lessened the experience? I shouldn’t have worried. Somehow, by some strange alchemy, this book has managed to be even better. It broke my heart. It mended it. Not over the same matters, but multiple times each. I’ve never read anything like this before. and now? I wish it hadn’t ended, but know that it had to.