Waiting on Wednesday – The Archived, by Victoria Schwab

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, which spotlights upcoming releases we are eagerly anticipating.

Coming January 22, 2013

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.

Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often-violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.

Being a Keeper isn’t just dangerous-it’s a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da’s death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.

In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.

I’ve been a fan of Victoria Schwab ever since I read The Near Witch last year and loved it. So, of course I was excited when I learned that she was writing something new! And doesn’t The Archived sound so interesting? I can’t wait to get my hands on it, and lucky me, my sister has an ARC!