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Gordon Dahlquist transfixed readers across the world with his dazzling literary debut, the epic Victorian tale **The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters***.* Now the internationally bestselling author continues an adventure like no other, featuring three heroes you will never forget.** **Awakening from a fevered delirium, Celeste Temple finds herself in a fishing village on the remote Iron Coast. She has no idea where her companions, Cardinal Chang and Doctor Svenson, might be—nor whether any of her enemies survived the dirigible crash that marked her last conscious moment. And while her body seems intact, she cannot say the same for her mind. For she must contend not only with the possibility that peril awaits her but with the memory of her traitorous fiancé’s murder at sea…along with thousands of other memories that now live within her—courtesy of a bewitching glass book. Hunted by murderous opportunists and cruel mercenaries of every kind, Miss Temple, Chang, and the Doctor are soon propelled into a quest that will draw them one by one into a realm of reckless, lawless terror. At every turn lies another enigma—and the stench of indigo clay, the raw material used to enslave even the most steadfast soul. Now they alone stand in the path of a diabolical conspiracy involving the books—one that will mean an alarming new world where once-free-roaming minds are wiped completely clean… if they live long enough. As Miss Temple, Cardinal Chang and Dr. Svenson uncover the devilish schemes of their deadly enemies, the terrifying secrets contained in **The Dark Volume** will be revealed one by one. For the blue glass is more lethal than they’d ever imagined—and those who possess it, as well as those who pursue it, are playing with fire. Pulsing with electrifying suspense, this uniquely thrilling feat of the imagination will grip readers in its dark thrall long after the final page is devoured. *From the Hardcover edition.* ### From Publishers Weekly Readers unfamiliar with bestseller Dahlquist's 2006 debut, *The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters*, which is set in an alternate world similar to Victorian Europe, may have trouble following this complicated sequel, despite the preparatory word on what has already happened at the start. In *The Glass Books*, West Indies plantation heiress Celeste Temple, naval surgeon Abelard Svenson and criminal Cardinal Chang joined forces to combat an evil cabal that smelted a mineral into a psychotropic blue glass that captures human memory. Temple, who survived the previous book's cinematic climax involving a gunfight in a sinking dirigible, finds herself suspected of a series of mysterious murders, while Svenson and Chang discover new enemies to thwart. Too much going on at the same time, including less than engaging confrontations with various over-the-top villains, undermines a clever concept that may yet be the basis for a solid adventure series. *(Mar. 31)* Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### From Booklist Dahlquist’s sequel to The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (2007) is dark indeed. The daunting “Preparatory Word” details what has gone before: who killed whom and what alchemical experiments have already taken place. If you haven’t read the first book, good luck! That said, fans of Tobsha Learner’s Soul (2008) and Jonathan Barnes’ Somnambulist (2008) will enjoy this surreal Victorian journey into the nightmarish possibilities of mind swapping. Miss Temple awakens after a dirigible crash with fragmented memories of murder and precious cargo. Separated from her companions, she flees hostile villagers in the company of the not-quite-honest Eloise, launching a seemingly endless series of adventures involving exquisite pain, sexual revelations, and near-death experiences. Meanwhile, a powerful cabal seeking a lost glass book is subverted by its victims, among them a blue-glass whore and a wily contessa. The idea of glass “books,” which absorb a person’s essence through a nasty “process,” is what makes this sometimes bewildering, overpopulated novel fascinating. It’s a big-concept story full of potent psychological metaphors, and if those metaphors never quite gel, they still offer readers much to contemplate. --Jen Baker