The Crooked Letter
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
When mirror twins Seth and Hadrian Castillo travel to Europe on holidays, they don’t expect the end of the world to follow them. Seth’s murder, however, puts exactly that into motion. From opposite sides of death, the Castillo twins grapple with a reality neither of them suspected, although it has been encoded in myths and legends for millennia. The Earth we know is just one of many "realms", three of which are inhabited by humans during various stages of their lives. And their afterlives... In the tradition of Philip Pullman and Ursula K. Le Guin and inspired by numerous arcane sources, the Books of the Cataclysm begin in the present world but soon propel the reader to a landscape that is simultaneously familiar and fantastic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Drawing on worldwide myths and legends, Australian author Williams (The Resurrected Man) expertly twists the familiar into the grotesque in this deeply spooky story, the first in a new fantasy series. When Seth Castillo is stabbed and killed, his spirit is whisked away to the Second Realm, a literally inside-out place full of hideous monsters, while his mirror twin, Hadrian, remains in the First Realm of the living. Their psychic link draws the two realms together, precipitating a world-warping cataclysm that the alien Yod hopes will let him conquer the First Realm as he has the Second. The twins' gaping bewilderment drives their supernatural guides to provide loads of flat exposition, and it's never clear why Hadrian doesn't simply kill himself to destroy the cross-realm link, but as protagonists rather than heroes they serve well enough. Future volumes will hopefully focus less on the magnificent scenery and more on the political intrigues only hinted at here.
