The House in the Cerulean Sea
Linus Baker leads a quiet, rule-bound life as a caseworker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, inspecting government orphanages and filing tidy reports. Then Extremely Upper Management hands him a classified assignment: travel to remote Marsyas Island and evaluate an orphanage housing six of the most dangerous magical children on record, among them a gnome, a wyvern, a green blob of indeterminate origin, a were-Pomeranian, and a boy who happens to be the Antichrist.
Expecting menace, Linus instead finds a strange, warm household held together by its enigmatic master, Arthur Parnassus. As grey routine gives way to sunshine, the sea, and a family he never imagined wanting, Linus is forced to weigh the demands of his job against the home taking shape around him.
Warm, funny, and quietly pointed about prejudice and the courage of ordinary kindness, TJ Klune's novel is a modern comfort read about found family and the choice to do the decent thing.
A rule-bound caseworker sent to evaluate a mysterious orphanage of magical children.
The enigmatic master of the orphanage who holds its unusual household together.
A cheerful six-year-old who is also the Antichrist.
An undocumented sprite who lives on and cares for Marsyas Island.
A gnome living at the orphanage on Marsyas Island, one of the six magical children in Arthur Parnassus's care.
This novel is the first entry in the Cerulean Chronicles, which continues with the sequel titled Somewhere Beyond the Sea.
The novel received the 2021 Alex Award from the American Library Association and the 2021 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.