Through Gates of Garnet and Gold

Bestseller McGuire’s breathtaking 11th novella in her Wayward Children series of interconnected portal fantasies revisits Nancy Whitman, heroine of the Hugo Award–winning first installment, Every Heart a Doorway. Following that adventure, Nancy wound up in the Halls of the Dead and never expected to return to her original world. Though the living must act as statues in this shadowy underworld to evade the notice of the angry dead, who devour anything alive that moves, Nancy relishes the stillness of her new life and, despite the danger, finally feels that she belongs. Then the angry dead turn on the statues as well. Sent to fetch help by the reigning Lady of the Dead, Nancy leaves the Halls of the Dead to seek out friends and allies who might be able to assist in making her new home safe once more. McGuire’s prose is elegant and earnest as ever and she writes especially poignantly about the deep and instinctive longing for home. Nancy’s bittersweet coming-of-age brings the story full circle while proving it’s still got legs. This stuns. Agent: Diana Fox, Fox Literary. (Jan.)