Henry Petrides
Abe Kalotay died in his front yard in late February.
…..Abe was on his back, eyes half-opened to that gray sky, mouth slack and his tongue drying blue, one of his hands with its quick-bitten nails draped across his stomach. The other hand was resting on the book.
….A last smudge of vivid red was slowly fading into the paper and Abe himself was mushroom-white and oddly shriveled.
The note Abe had tucked between the pages was perfectly legible, however, despite the shakiness of the hand. He’d used his left. His right had been fixed in place as the book drank.
“Johanna, he had written. I’m sorry. Don’t let your mother in. Keep this book safe and away from your blood. I love you so much. Tell Esther”
Johanna Kalotay is the protector of a collection of rare books. These books are magic books that will allow their readers to walk through walls or turn water into wine.
Her older sister Esther moves around constantly, because she has to, if she wants to survive.
If the sisters wants to survive they must find out about the secrets their parents kept from them and solve the problems thise secrets create. However, the secrets are centuries old and span continents. It could cost the sisters their lives, if they don’t solve the problems they cause.
This First Novel by Emma Törzs is a spellbinding thriller of dark fantasy and fantastic writing. You won’t be able to put it down.
My edition of the book is from Illumicrate. They produce some fantastic looking books, which my edition of this book exemplifies – the cover, the digitally sprayed edges and the foil embossed cover of the book itself. And they usually have endpaper art, which you can see here. Best of all they are not terribly expensive, but there are not very many of them, so you have to be fast to get one.