A blank slate that's spellbinding

A grim fantasy of stolen memories and sexual abuse is leavened by a love story.

- Catherine Woulfe

In her first novel for adults, YA writer Bridget Collins imagines a world where most books are records of real, often traumatic memories. Gifted people called “‘binders” act as conduits between each desperate soul and the book that will hold their story. Once a book is written, the person’s own memory is wiped clean.

Binding can be a balm but it can also be used, as our teen protagonist Emmett discovers, by powerful people who wish to do terrible things unchecked. A binding can at once wipe a victim’s memory and give the abuser a book to keep as a memento.

As you might expect, then,