It is a simple and timeless plot: As William Goldman puts it in “The Princess Bride,” “True love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops.” Their forced competition, in direct opposition to their passion, earned Morgenstern weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, a movie deal and the hearts of readers in 37 languages. Speaking of Juliet and her Romeo, the central characters of “The Night Circus,” Celia and her Marco, are pitted against each other in a magical duel, but ultimately fall in love. Morgenstern catapulted to international fame with her 2011 phantasmagorical hit “ The Night Circus,” in which a community calling themselves rêveurs (dreamers) follow a magical circus. Unfortunately for Erin Morgenstern and her sophomore offering, “The Starless Sea,” it is not an ideal subject for a novel - or at least, not for this one. This is a beautiful succession, and an admirable topic for an essay on Joseph Campbell or a San Diego Comic Con panel regarding Stan Lee. The wide-eyed wonder of a child reading with a flashlight under the covers leads to the adult passion for spinning narrative from nothing. Francis Ford Coppola won the Palme d’Or by transplanting “ Heart of Darkness” to Vietnam in “ Apocalypse Now.” Neil Gaiman gorgeously reimagined “The Jungle Book” with ghosts replacing wild animals in “ The Graveyard Book.” If these fail to impress, consider that “Romeo and Juliet” is actually Ovid’s tale of Pyramus and Thisbe from the “Metamorphoses,” which was itself based on an even more ancient etiological myth. 'The only response to this novel is simply: wow.Pastiche (alternately, homage or fan fiction) is a venerable genre. With the lives of everyone at the Circus of Dreams at stake, they must test the very limits of the imagination, and of their love.Ĭomplete the gorgeous anniversary collection with The Starless Sea, the second novel from the author of the The Night Circus, out now. But behind the glittering acrobats, fortune-tellers and contortionists a fierce competition is underway.Ĭelia and Marco are two young magicians who have been trained since childhood for a deadly duel. A sign hanging upon an iron gates reads:įull of breath-taking amazements and open only at night, Le Cirque des Rêves seems to cast a spell over all who wander its circular paths.

Against the grey sky the towering tents are striped black and white.

It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Rediscover the million-copy bestselling fantasy read with a different kind of magic, now in a stunning anniversary edition to mark 10 years since it's paperback debut.

The starless sea waterstones