The first novel from Pulitzer-Prize finalist and Macarthur 'Genius Grant' fellow Kelly Link, The Book of Love sees supernatural beings and chaos descend on the small seaside town of Lovesend, Massachusetts in the wake of the unexpected return of three missing teenagers.
Kelly Link is the author of White Cat, Black Dog; Get in Trouble, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction; Magic for Beginners; Stranger Things Happen; and Pretty Monsters. Her short stories have been published in The Best American Short Stories and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She is a MacArthur “Genius Grant” fellow and has received a grant from the National Endowment.
‘The Book of Love is an incredible achievement — a novel whose
people and places feel so true to life that the magic that shimmers
through the pages like grown-up fairy dust seems not just real but
unquestionable. This modern-day The Master and Margarita will
remain with you long after you have turned the last lush and
visionary page.’
*Cassandra Clare*
By turns playful and harrowing, surreal and sagacious, replete with
gods and other monsters, The Book of Love is an astonishing,
gorgeous novel written with Link’s unique wit, warmth and ability
to get under your skin.
*Holly Black*
An eldritch Our Town that somehow manages to be both epic and
intimate. Link's language is nimble and startling and goes down so
easy. You won't realize you're drunk on this story until it's too
late and you're careening from the spectacularly weird to the
wildly funny to an aching grief almost too familiar to bear. A
dizzying dream ride you will never forget.
*Leigh Bardugo*
What more can be said about Kelly Link, that has not been
(breathlessly) said already? She is a sorcerer. She is our greatest
living fabulist. There is no one like her. And The Book of Love is
a luxurious, bewitching novel of exceptional beauty and power
*Carmen Maria Machado*
Reviewing The Book of Love feels like trying to describe a dream.
It’s profoundly beautiful, provokes intense emotion [and] offers up
what feel like rooted, incontrovertible truths... So much of Link’s
work steps lightly, a tempering of the commonplace with vivid,
delicate surprise.
*New York Times*
Link has made a modern myth, grand enough to capture all the agony
and absurdity and radiance of love itself. This is one of those
books that cuts your life in two: before you read it, and
after.
*Alix E. Harrow*
A magical debut of life after life
*The Guardian*
Her writing itself might be a kind of ritual magic designed to draw
you irresistibly in. Think The Master And The Margarita, or maybe a
later season of Riverdale: everything is strange, anything is
possible. Is it too obvious to say you'll love this book?
*SFX, 5**
Link wraps a terrifying core of rusty razor blades in deceptive
layers of charming, daffy quirkiness. It's a confection like no
other: one you won't forget – or regret.
*Cory Doctorow*
Magnificently witty in ideas and narrative, sweeping in scale and
execution, The Book of Love is an absolute feast of a story,
ushering the reader along a path that is always sublime, often
hilarious and frequently surreal, and at every single point
absolutely rammed full of heart and truth. I am in love with Mo,
Laura, Daniel and Suzanne, I want to take a trip to Lovesend, I
want to see My Two Hands Both Knowe You play The Kissing Song at
the Cliff Hangar, I want to read Caitlynn Hightower's novels, I
want to grab coffee at What Hast Thou Ground? I could have kept
reading this story far beyond the last page; I wish I could have
lived it for real, just a little.
*Melinda Salisbury*
A masterpiece... The small-town world Link conjures in The Book of
Love—one full of nuanced relationships between a large cast of
characters, local history and cosmic mythology, and magic hiding in
plain sight—is among the most detailed and immersive ever put to
paper
*Esquire*
Reading this felt like entering a vivid fever dream, through the
story themes of grief, love, family and identity are explored in a
tender and beautiful way
*Glamour*
In The Book of Love, Link’s debut novel, she revels in upholding
and upturning the genre’s conventions... the writing sparkles with
wit and colour, and there is much camp weirdness and shimmering
grandeur
*The Spectator*
A wholly absorbing journey that boasts the hallmarks of Link's
shorter fiction while building out a robust cast of characters in
the vividly rendered town of Lovesend. At its heart, Link's debut
is exactly what the title suggests, a moving and deft exploration
of the many ways 'love goes on even when we cannot'
*BookList, starred review*
The Book of Love is pure enchantment – a tale of love, death, magic
and teenagers being teenagers, rich with fairy strangeness and told
in sentences like jewels strung on a chain. A book to get lost
in.
*Zen Cho*
A playful, ambitious story of magic erupting in the everyday, so
vividly drawn
*The Bookseller*
Link has a genius for combining the mundane with the uncanny,
diving into the dark currents where dreams grow and bringing up
magic-encrusted jetsam, pearlescent ideas that coil and shock
*Kirkus*
Lovers of magical coming-of-age stories will find the protagonists’
journeys compelling, while anyone who believes that love is the
greatest magic of all will find the redemptive power of love (of
all types) imbued in every single page
*Library Journal*
Like Gilmore Girls if written by Stephen King… Fabulous in all
senses of the word
*Irish Times*
Link’s prose is unmatched: she makes the world seem both more
surreal, and more gorgeous at every turn. There is nobody writing
like her: Link is truly singular
*Sarah Maria Griffin, author of Other Words for Smoke*
A playful, ambitious story of magic erupting in the everyday, so
vividly drawn
*The Bookseller*
It's inventive, unputdownable and a ton of fun
*People, Book of the Week*
There it is: the acidic elixir that makes drinking up Link’s work
such an intoxicating treat. In her prose, matter becomes plastic,
bodies melt, and the membrane separating reality from fantasy is
beaten to airy thinness.
*Washington Post*
Haunting, immersive, and at times surpassingly beautiful
*Locus Magazine*
The Book of Love is, simply put, a magical, confusing, heartfelt,
strange, wonderfully written novel that delivers everything fans of
Link's short fiction expected while also packing a few
surprises
*NPR*
The Book of Love…is going to delight [Link’s] fans and win her new
ones. It’s about grief and love - and ancient griefs and loves -
and it features the kind of magic and mythology that doesn’t seem
to be based in one tradition or lore but still feels familiar’
*The British Fantasy Society*
Every page is an absolute feast to the eyes. The Book of Love is a
fabulous magical coming-of-age storywith all the absurdities,
myths, and spells that make for an enchanting read.
*Asian Age*
The prose is diamond-sharp; it’s hard to imagine Link ever writing
a clunky sentence or a bad description... her characters feel like
family: by turns lovable and enraging
*The Guardian*
Tolkein topped-up with Judy Blume; teen angst meets mysticism and
mystery… With this terrific tome, Link proves that one of fiction’s
premier pithy storytellers is in it for the long stretch
*The Herald*
A veritable phantasmagoria that we can imagine a fair few grown-up
former Harry Potter fans (and Buffy fans) lapping up
*Book Munch*
A great read
*The Sunday Post (Dundee)*
Delivers Link’s style without compromise... a novel that’s as
magical and weird and ephemeral as any of her short fiction
*ParSec*
Full of Link’s simultaneously sincere and tongue-in-cheek humour
and imaginative, beautiful writing – at times, her prose will take
your breath away – this book is never boring, and constantly
surprises with what comes next
*Interzone*
A wild, compelling ride, full of fantastical twists and turns
*Town & Country, Best Books of 2024 so far*
Both bizarre and compelling, showcasing Link’s talent for crafting
unique stories
*The Guardian Nigeria*
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |