Description: "The Binding is a dark chocolate slice of cake with a surprising, satisfying seam of raspberry running through it. It is a rich, gothic entertainment that explores what books have trapped inside them and reminds us of the power of storytelling. Spellbinding." - Tracy Chevalier, bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring "Truly spellbinding... Many readers of The Binding will simply sink gratefully into the pleasures of its pages, because, like all great fables, it also functions as transporting romance." - The Guardian "Truly spellbinding . . . Many readers of The Binding will simply sink gratefully into the pleasures of its pages, because, like all great fables, it also functions as transporting romance. . . . The Binding is a kissing novel par excellence, and on this level, it is like a wonderful meal made from a few simple ingredients: the feeling in your chest when you hold someone in your arms for the first time; the sight of a host of bluebells. In recent years, the state of the world has threatened to make us forget the simple pleasures of kisses and bluebells and thick novels that tell stories of heartbreak. Here is a book to help us remember." - Guardian "A captivating fantasy novel with forbidden love at its heart." - Good Housekeeping (UK) "Intense, immersive. . . . A stirring, highly original piece of storytelling and world-making." - Sunday Times UK "A real treat . . . gothic, imaginative and dark." - The Times (UK) "Bookbinders capture souls in this fantasy's bleak Dickensian world. The novel's most horrifying victim is the starving mother who doesn't recognize her children because she had to sell her memories of them." - New York Times 10 New Books We Recommend This Week "Using evocative language to express a lovingly told tale of lost memories, Collins wraps her story of a passionate, forbidden relationship in mystery and magic." - Booklist "Of course, books don't need to be turned into magical artifacts. They already are. The magic of Bridget Collins's novel The Binding... is only a step away from that reality. Collins's vivid descriptions of the abuse of that magic within a grimy faux-Victorian-era world of workhouses and exploitation are almost too painfully true....The Binding succeeds in creating the magic it proposes: the experience of memory returning, a rush of recollection that can change the whole world, if only for one person at a time -- or sometimes two." - Naomi Novik New York Times Book Review "The Binding succeeds in creating the magic it proposes: the experience of memory returning, a rush of recollection that can change the whole world, if only for one person at a time -- or sometimes two." - Naomi Novik, The New York Times Book Review "The Binding is an imaginative, thought-provoking tale of how--for better and worse--moments can define who we become." - BookPage "Bridget Collins' first adult novel is a gothic fable about the spellbinding power of books. Young Emmett Farmer is summoned from the fields to begin an apprenticeship as a bookbinder, a mysterious vocation that binds memories in leather. As he settles into his new position, Emmett makes a shocking discovery: his name on one of the mystical books." - USA Today 5 Books Not to Miss This Week "Everyone keeps calling this novel spell ~binding~ and they! are! not! wrong! A true epic in every sense of the word." - Cosmopolitan "A compulsive mix of historical and gothic fiction." - Wiltshire Living

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