The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern is a standalone fantasy novel by the writer of The Night Circus.
Beneath the sky, is the earth and beneath the earth is dirt and somewhere beneath all of that is the Starless Sea and the Harbor that guards it. The Harbor is filled with twists and turns, but mostly stories. To get to this world beneath, there are doors that only a few will find.
Zachary Ezra Rawlins missed his door the first time he saw it as a child, but now as a man and graduate student he is determined to follow the mystery to its end. A bee, a key, and a sword will lead the way but it is the heart that must be followed.
This story was a magically flowing dreamworld drifting on a sea of honey and taking us on a labyrinthine journey in and out of story. There was just so much to this book to imagine and see; so many puzzles to be solved and stories to see to their end. But I won’t lie, I don’t know that I caught on to everything but all the pieces were definitely there. This book would definitely be worth a second read just to see what I missed.
I loved this idea of stories repeating themselves and how Morgenstern does it with Fate and Time is just beautifully done. It was such a ride to start this book wondering why I was reading pieces of several different stories, only to find out they were all versions of the same one. I thought it was wonderful that we uncovered these pieces alongside Zachary, who I found to be quite an interesting character.
I could have gone either way with Kat’s diary. It wasn’t something I necessarily needed but I did like where we ended up in the afterword.
There was just so much to this story that it is almost impossible to do a review justice but just like The Night Circus, I found this book to be magically in all the right ways. The Starless Sea gets 4 very high stars from me.
That’s all for now!
-M-