The Library of the Unwritten (Hell's Library #1)

by A.J. Hackwith

It is a story’s natural ambition to wake up and start telling itself to the world.

Claire lived by the firm moral philosophy that one could never have too many pockets, too many books, or too much tea.

“A lie. A dream. Good stories are both,” Claire dismissed. “Is it so bad? He’ll remember the story, turn it over carefully in the back of his mind, feel the edges of it like he would a lucky coin. A story will change him if he lets it. The shape and the spirit of it. Change how he acts, what dreams he chooses to believe in. We all need our stories; I just fed him a good one.”

In the minds of its believers, Heaven must be perfect. Absent nothing, regretting nothing, wanting nothing. It makes sense, then, that Heaven has no wing of our library. What is a story without want, without desire, without need?

Vanquishing an enemy and taking his books was just as strategic as taking his cannons. Books are knowledge weaponized. And what weapons you cannot steal, you must burn.

The pain in death isn’t the dying. It’s the wounds we leave in our wake.”

“Forgiven doesn’t mean no regret. We’ll always regret the wrongs we’ve done. It just means you aren’t punishing yourself for it.”

The trouble with reading is it goes to your head.

“We are the dreams that did not die with the dreamer. We care nothing for the dark.”

And here’s how you make a story: Soak a life in mortality. Scrape the soul.