Reviews
"With haunting prose and assured world building, Summers' debut shows promise. The City of Stardust has echoes of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus (2011) or V. E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020), and will intrigue fans of portal fantasies."-- Booklist, "Georgia Summers's fascinating debut, The City of Stardust, draws readers into a compelling story full of magic, curses, keys, and stories. It asks what we would do to break a curse, to close a door, or to open one. Readers who loved The Starless Sea or The Ten Thousand Doors of January will also love this darkly magical book."-- Kat Howard, author of the Unseen World duology, "In this darkly gorgeous tale of yearning and curses, Summers explores the terrible and wonderful power of love in its many forms - enduring, loyal, selfish, toxic, destructive - and what happens when betrayal and survival are but two sides of the same coin. Utterly mesmerizing." -- A. Y. Chao, #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Shanghai Immortal
Synopsis
A #1 International Bestseller - An Amazon Best Book of February 2024 - An IndieNext Pick "A dark dream of a novel...that feels both timeless and original. Enjoy--and also beware. This fairy tale is deadly." -- Laini Taylor, New York Times bestselling author Slip into a lush world of magic, stardust, and monsters in this spellbinding contemporary fantasy from debut author Georgia Summers. For centuries, the Everlys have seen their best and brightest disappear, taken as punishment for a crime no one remembers, for a purpose no one understands. Their tormentor, a woman named Penelope, never ages, never grows sick - and never forgives a debt. Violet Everly was a child when her mother, Marianne, left on a stormy night, determined to break the curse. When Marianne never returns, Penelope issues an ultimatum: Violet has ten years to find her mother, or she will take Marianne's place. Her hunt leads her into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge. And into the path of Penelope's quiet assistant, Aleksander, who Violet knows cannot be trusted - and yet to whom she finds herself undeniably drawn. With her time running out, Violet will travel the edges of the world to find Marianne and the key to the city of stardust, where the Everly story began. Praise for The City of Stardust : "A story as darkly wondrous as midnight. Summers brilliantly takes our yearning to open doors to magical new worlds, and twists it into a seductively vicious dream of darkness, blood, and winged horrors. Enthralling to the last page." -- Shelley Parker-Chan "Summers' debut is a dark, gorgeous tale of curses, gods and monsters, with the love and loyalty of family at its heart." -- Sangu Mandanna, A #1 International Bestseller * An Amazon Best Book of February 2024 * An IndieNext Pick "A dark dream of a novel...that feels both timeless and original. Enjoy--and also beware. This fairy tale is deadly." -- Laini Taylor "A story as darkly wondrous as midnight. Enthralling to the last page." -- Shelley Parker-Chan "A dark, gorgeous tale of curses, gods and monsters." -- Sangu Mandanna A curse can be many things. For the Everlys, it begins with stardust. For centuries, the Everlys have seen their best and brightest disappear, taken as punishment for a crime no one remembers, for a purpose no one understands. Their tormentor, a woman named Penelope, never ages, never grows sick - and never forgives a debt. Violet Everly was a child when her mother, Marianne, left on a stormy night, determined to break the curse. When Marianne never returns, Penelope issues an ultimatum: Violet has ten years to find her mother, or she will take Marianne's place. Her hunt leads her into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge. And into the path of Penelope's quiet assistant, Aleksander, who Violet knows cannot be trusted - and yet to whom she finds herself undeniably drawn. With her time running out, Violet will travel the edges of the world to find Marianne and the key to the city of stardust, where the Everly story began. Slip into a lush world of magic, stardust, and monsters in this spellbinding standalone fantasy from debut author Georgia Summers.
