Right from the start of this book we see Dabos’s high-powered imaginative world building at work. The rest of this review contains spoilers for the first two books, so if you haven’t read them yet, go do that and I’ll see you in my next post! So far, I’ve found the first book, A Winter’s Promise, to be the weakest of the series, so if you tried that one and liked it alright but didn’t love it, I implore you to try the sequels, which are positively delightful (for reference, I rated the first book around a 3.5, and the second and third are both five-stars). Christelle Dabos has created a totally unique world, blending imagery from both fantasy and sci-fi to create one of the few successful literary steampunk universes that I’ve encountered, and her world building doesn’t take away from memorable characters and action-packed plot. Seriously, if you haven’t picked up this series, you’re seriously missing out on some wonderfully inventive and refreshing fantasy. If you haven’t yet read A Winter’s Promise and The Missing of Clairdelune, stop reading and go to your library to borrow them or contact your local independent bookstore to order them right away-and go ahead and grab The Memory of Babel while you’re at it!

A fantastical story of intrigue and suspense, A Winter's Promise will find fans among readers of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, Victoria Aveyard's Red Queen, and N.K.The Memory of Babel is the third installment of Christelle Dabos’s The Mirror Visitor quartet (translated by Hildegarde Serle), and after a few months’ delay due to world events, is hitting U.S. The first installment in the bestselling Mirror Visitor Quartet, A Winter's Promise introduces readers to a remarkable heroine and to the richly imagined universe of the arks : floating celestial islands governed by the spirits of immortal ancestors. Lose yourself in the world of the arks and in the company of an unforgettable character in this French runaway hit by debut author, Christelle Dabos. There, in the company of her inscrutable future husband, Ophelia slowly realizes that she is a pawn in a political game that will have far-reaching ramifications not only for her but for her entire world. Ophelia must follow her fiancé to the towering city of Citaceleste, where nobody can be trusted. Her peaceful, if somewhat dull existence on the ark of Anima is interrupted when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, a taciturn and influential member of a powerful clan from a distant ark, the cold and icy Pole.

She possesses two special gifts : an unrivaled talent for reading the pasts of objects and the ability to travel through mirrors.

A mix of awkward misfit and misunderstood genius, Ophelia cares little about appearances or other people's opinions of her.

La Mémoire de Babel by Christelle Dabos