The Mapmakers Trilogy Series

The thrilling conclusion to S. E. Grove’s New York Times–bestselling Mapmakers Trilogy—a historical, fantastical adventure perfect for fans of Philip Pullman!

It is late August 1892, and Sophia Tims is coming home from a foreign Age, having risked her life in search of her missing parents. Now she is aboard ship, with a hard-earned, cryptic map that may help her find them at long last.

But her homecoming is anything but peaceful. Threatening clouds hang over New Orleans harbor. Sinkholes have been opening in Boston, swallowing parts of the city whole. Rogue weirwinds tear up the Baldlands. Worst of all, New Occident is at war, led by a prime minister who will do anything to expand the country westward. He has blackmailed Sophia’s beloved uncle Shadrack into drawing the battle maps that will lead countless men and boys—including Sophia’s best friend, Theo—to their deaths.

As Sophia puzzles out her next move, Shadrack is peeling back layers of government intrigue, and Theo is bracing himself to fight. A red fog of war is rising, and New Occident’s future hangs in the balance . . .


* “A triumphant conclusion to a prodigious feat of storytelling.”–Kirkus Reviews, starred review

* “A sharply creative, engrossing trilogy . . . Grove’s imaginative world building continues to dazzle in this third entry . . . An enormously satisfying wrap-up.”–BCCB, starred review 

For fans of The Golden Compass, this is book two in the Mapmakers Trilogy and follow-up to S.E. Grove’s stunning debut, The Glass Sentence

It is the summer of 1892, one year since Sophia Tims and her friend Theo embarked upon the dangerous adventure that rewrote the map of the world. Since their return home to Boston, she has continued searching for clues to her parents’ disappearance, combing archives and libraries, grasping at even the most slender leads. Theo has apprenticed himself to an explorer in order to follow those leads across the country—but one after another proves to be a dead end.

Then Sophia discovers that a crucial piece of the puzzle exists in a foreign Age. At the same time, Theo discovers that his old life outside the law threatens to destroy the new one he has built with Sophia and her uncle Shadrack. What he and Sophia do not know is that their separate discoveries are intertwined, and that one remarkable person is part of both.

There is a city that holds all of the answers—but it cannot be found on any map. Surrounded by plague, it can only be reached by a journey through darkness and chaos, which is at the same time the plague’s cure: The Golden Specific.


“This delicious blend of magic, history, and science will continue to delight fans of intricate world-building and rich storytelling.”—School Library Journal

“Readers who have already read the first installment will gladly savor another journey with Sophia and marvel at the worlds they enter. Brilliantly imagined and full of wonder.”—Kirkus Reviews 

A New York Times Best Seller
An Indiebound Best Seller
A Kids’ Next Top Ten Book
A Summer/Fall 2014 Indies Introduce New Voices SelectionA Junior Library Guild Selection
One of Publishers Weekly’s Best Summer Reads


“Not since Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass have I seen such an original and compelling world built inside a book.”—Megan Whalen Turner, New York Times best-selling author of A Conspiracy of Kings

She has only seen the world through maps. She had no idea they were so dangerous.
 
Boston, 1891. Sophia Tims comes from a family of explorers and cartologers who, for generations, have been traveling and mapping the New World—a world changed by the Great Disruption of 1799, when all the continents were flung into different time periods.  Eight years ago, her parents left her with her uncle Shadrack, the foremost cartologer in Boston, and went on an urgent mission. They never returned. Life with her brilliant, absent-minded, adored uncle has taught Sophia to take care of herself.

Then Shadrack is kidnapped. And Sophia, who has rarely been outside of Boston, is the only one who can search for him. Together with Theo, a refugee from the West, she travels over rough terrain and uncharted ocean, encounters pirates and traders, and relies on a combination of Shadrack’s maps, common sense, and her own slantwise powers of observation. But even as Sophia and Theo try to save Shadrack’s life, they are in danger of losing their own.

The Glass Sentence plunges readers into a time and place they will not want to leave, and introduces them to a heroine and hero they will take to their hearts. It is a remarkable debut.



“I think The Glass Sentence is absolutely marvelous.  It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time.  The world-building is so convincing, the plot so fast-moving and often surprising, and the ideas behind the novel so completely original. I love this book.”—Nancy Farmer, National Book Award-winning author of The House of the Scorpion

“I loved it! So imaginative!”—Nancy Pearl

“An exuberantly imagined cascade of unexplored worlds, inscribed in prose and detail as exquisite as the … maps young Sophia uses to navigate such unpredictable landscapes. A book like a pirate’s treasure hoard for map lovers like me.”—Elizabeth Wein, New York Times best-selling author of Code Name Verity

“Brilliant in concept, breathtaking in scale and stellar in its worldbuilding; this is a world never before seen in fiction . . . Wholly original and marvelous beyond compare.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
 
“A thrilling, time-bending debut . . . It’s a cracking adventure, and Grove bolsters the action with commentary on xenophobia and government for hire, as well as a fascinating system of map magic.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review