Dora, a former domestic servant at the university has a secret desire—to understand the mystery of her brother’s death. She believes that the answer lies within The Museum of Psykical Research, where he worked when Dora was a child.
New York Times bestselling author Owen King will visit our Saratoga store to discuss his “richly imagined” (The New York Times) Dickensian fantasy of illusion and charm where cats are revered as religious figures, thieves are noble, scholars are revolutionaries, and conjurers are the most wonderful criminals you can imagine.
With the city in a revolutionary upheaval, where citizens like Robert Barnes, her lover and a student radical, are now in positions of authority, Dora contrives to gain the curatorship of the half-forgotten museum only to find it all but burnt to the ground, while the neighboring museums seem oddly untouched.
Robert offers her one of these, The National Museum of the Worker … but neither this museum, nor the street it is hidden away on, nor Dora herself, are what they at first appear to be. Set against the backdrop of an oddly familiar and wondrous city on the verge of collapse, Dora’s search for the truth will unravel a monstrous conspiracy and bring her to the edge of worlds.
King will talk about his new book with fellow author Charles Soule. The story begins in an unnamed city nicknamed the Fairest — a place distinguished by the river and the mountains that split the municipality in half, its theaters and many museums, the Morgue Ship and, by its essential unmappability.
Owen King is the author of The Curator, Double Feature, and We’re All in This Together: A Novella and Stories. He is the coauthor of Sleeping Beauties and Intro to Alien Invasion and the coeditor of Who Can Save Us Now? Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories.
Charles Soule is a New York Times-bestselling comic book writer, musician, and attorney. He is best known for writing Daredevil, She-Hulk, Death of Wolverine (inspiration for the film Logan,) and various Star Wars comics from Marvel Comics, as well as his creator-owned series Curse Words, Eight Billion Genies, Undiscovered Country, Hell to Pay, and The Bloody Dozen from Image Comics. His award-winning political sci-fi epic Letter 44 was published by Oni Press. He is also a bestselling novelist whose work includes The Oracle Year, Anyone, and The Endless Vessel.