The Book of M
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- USD 19.99
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- USD 19.99
Publisher Description
Set in a dangerous near future world, The Book of M tells the captivating story of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe, risking everything to save the ones they love.
In the middle of a market in India, a man’s shadow disappears. This mysterious phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.
Two years later, Ory and Max have escaped the Forgetting by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day Max’s shadow disappears.
Knowing that her condition makes her dangerous, Max runs away. But Ory refuses to give up the time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memories disappear, he sets out into a perilous, unrecognizable world.
Reviews
‘Ambitious road-trip epic… a moving treatise on love and loss, with the bonus of a stunning denouement’
GUARDIAN
‘Peng Shepherd’s debut novel is the real deal…a meditation on memories and personhood’
ELLE
‘Graceful and riveting’
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
‘I was both disturbed and inspired by Max’s and Ory’s journey through apocalypses large and small. Peng Shepherd has written a prescient, dark fable for the now and for the soon-to-be. THE BOOK OF M is our beautiful nightmare shadow’
Paul Tremblay, author of A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS and THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD
‘A voice that's as emotionally compelling as GONE GIRL, a novel that's as thrilling as THE STAND. Prepare to fall in love with your own shadow. And to lose sleep’
David Lipsky, New York Times best-selling author of ALTHOUGH OF COURSE YOU END UP BECOMING YOURSELF and ABSOLUTELY AMERICAN
‘THE BOOK OF M is exciting, imaginative, unique, and beautiful. Shepherd proves herself not just a writer to watch, but a writer to treasure’
Darin Strauss, bestselling author of HALF A LIFE
About the author
Peng Shepherd was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where she rode horses and trained in classical ballet, and has lived in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, London, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York. Her debut novel, The Book of M, has been featured in The Guardian, io9 Gizmodo, Book Riot, and Elle Canada. She is a winner of the Elizabeth George Foundation's emerging writers grant.
Visit Peng online at pengshepherd.com, and find her on Facebook and Twitter: @pengshepherd.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An apocalyptic future in which an epidemic dubbed the Forgetting robs large swaths of the world's population of their shadows and memories causing them to work dangerous magic sets the scene for Shepherd's exciting debut. Husband and wife Ory and Max have been holed up in an abandoned hotel outside Arlington, Va., for two years, living hand-to-mouth off beef jerky and scavenged goods, and hiding from the predatory world outside, where the shadowless wreak havoc and misremember the old world into a new one (in one instance, a shadowless forgets what a house looks like; it is rebuilt with its roof on the floor). Then Max's shadow disappears. The couple devises protective rules, and Ory gives Max a tape recorder to document her memories. But when Max escapes, Ory sets out on a terrifying journey to find her. He is beset by enraged shadowless with electric guts; joins a book-collecting, shadowed army; and meets archer Mahnaz, who has a fascinating backstory of her own. Ory and Max separately gather stray rumors of a mythologized figure chasing a cure for shadowlessness in New Orleans, though it's uncertain whether they'll reach the city without dying. Though its characters sometimes slide into tropes, Shepherd's debut is graceful and riveting, slowly peeling back layers of an intricately constructed and unsettling alternate future. , Correction: an earlier version of this review misspelled the author's last name.
