The Book That Broke the World

The second volume in Mark Lawrence's Library Trilogy, following The Book That Wouldn't Burn. Evar and Livira stand side by side and yet far beyond each other's reach. Evar is forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe, out into the vastness of a world he has never seen. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover her book if she's to return to her life, wrestling with her own writing to reclaim the volume in which it was written.

A new point-of-view character opens the book: Celcha, born into slavery alongside her brother Hellet. While excavating at a dig site, the pair discover a long-lost trove of books — forbidden knowledge that carries a severe price.

Long ago, a lie was told, and with the passing years it has grown and spread, a small push leading to a chain of desperate consequences. The library's secret war has chosen its champions and set them on the board, and it threatens to break the world.