Dedicated readers of books love books about books. Here is one unlike any you have encountered, I’m sure. It’s a pleasure to find a story with such an unusual and satisfying premise: that an entire wing of Hell is set aside for the preservation of books which exist only in the ether or the author’s imagination whether realized or not, completed or abandoned. Sometimes the author never connects with the manuscript and it remains unwritten. Upon occasion the two will make contact and it becomes a real book, but many do not. Claire is the librarian whose task it is to preserve and protect these phantom notions.

A character has escaped his literary prison in the endlessly repeating story and has taken with him his book. He arranges to meet the author who is totally unaware of the situation, imperiling both the work itself and the library at large. It is Claire’s job to track him and return both character and book to their rightful, if unhappy place. It’s harder than you might imagine.

In the process, a fragment of an occult work is revealed, one which can upset the balance of power between Heaven and Hell as well as other realms such as Valhalla, where storytelling and literature blend and evolve. Players from all sides enter into the fray where life and death are ill-defined but to be avoided if possible. What does it mean for a soul consigned to Hades to die?

Wonderfully imaginative and written with careful craft, this fantastic tale will appeal to readers who love the unusual, the bizarre, the unlikely. Plenty of action, lots of character development and written with obvious enjoyment, that happy feeling is carried to the lucky reader of this wholly realized and corporeal book.