About the Book
Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.
Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians
can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which
they rest is the Archive.
Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here
four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once
was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often-violent Histories
from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the
people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for
staying alive.
Being a Keeper isn't just dangerous — it's a
constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da's death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the
boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive,
the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately
altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece
together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.
In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin
lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit,
unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.
