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The Book of Love

by Kelly Link

A seaside town caught in a supernatural bargain

Regular price $18.34 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize

    Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

  • Editorial selection

    One of Vulture's Ten Best Books of the Year

    Selected as one of Vulture's ten best books of the year.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A seaside town caught in a supernatural bargain

In Lovesend, Massachusetts, three teenagers return nearly a year after disappearing—and after their presumed deaths. Their music teacher offers them a way back to family and friends, but it comes with magical tasks and a rule of silence. As other supernatural figures arrive with competing agendas, the teens and Laura’s sister, Susannah, confront the mystery of what happened and the danger gathering around their community. The novel brings its supernatural conflict into everyday settings, including a high school classroom and a small seaside town, while placing friendship, romance, and family ties alongside love and loss, laughter and dread.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in contemporary fantasy grounded in a small seaside community.
  • For readers who enjoy supernatural bargains, magical tasks, and mysteries tied to disappearance and return.
  • For readers interested in stories that bring friendship, romance, and family relationships into a fantasy conflict.

Themes

Love, friendship, and family tiesLoss and returnSupernatural bargains and competing agendasMystery and community danger

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE - FINALIST FOR THE NEBULA AWARD - LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

In the acclaimed first novel from short story virtuoso and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link, three teenagers become pawns in a supernatural power struggle.


"A dreamlike, profoundly beautiful novel [that] pushes our understanding of what a fantasy novel can be."--Amal El-Mohtar, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"Imagine a ring of David Mitchell and Stephen King books dancing around a fire until something new, brave, and wonderful rose up from the flames."--Isaac Fitzgerald, Today

ONE OF VULTURE AND PUBLISHER WEEKLY'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR - A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The New Yorker, Time, Town & Country, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, New York Post, Book Riot, Lit Hub


The Book of Love showcases Kelly Link at the height of her powers, channeling potent magic and attuned to all varieties of love--from friendship to romance to abiding family ties--with her trademark compassion, wit, and literary derring-do. Readers will find joy (and a little terror) and an affirmation that love goes on, even when we cannot.

Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are.

With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance--and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks; while they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they've been. In the end, there will be winners and there will be losers.

But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with the pieces of the lives they left behind, and Laura's sister, Susannah, attempts to reconcile what she remembers with what she fears, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing their community in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert a looming disaster.

Welcome to Kelly Link's incomparable Lovesend, where you'll encounter love and loss, laughter and dread, magic and karaoke, and some really good pizza.
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