Darkly

A wonderful new book is coming from Random House Children’s Books.

Autorentext

Marisha Pessl is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult novel Neverworld Wake, as well as two New York Times bestsellers: Night Film and Special Topics in Calamity Physics. She lives with her husband and three daughters in New York.

Klappentext

**#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A powder keg of dark secrets and mind-bending puzzles, this must-read thriller is “addictively suspenseful” (The Washington Post) and “full of atmospheric thrills” (Los Angeles Times)—from the New York Times bestselling author of Night Film.

Your favorite game has come to life. And you don’t want to find out what happens if you lose…

**“Pessl is gargantuan: wildly smart, extremely surprising, a wordsmith, a queen. Read her.” —E. Lockhart, #1 New York Times bestselling author of *We Were Liars

***A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Arcadia “Dia” Gannon has been obsessed with Louisiana Veda, the game designer whose obsessive creations and company, Darkly, have gained a cultlike following. Dia is shocked when she’s chosen for a highly-coveted internship, along with six other teenagers from around the world. Why her? Dia has never won anything in her life.

Darkly, once a game-making empire renowned for its ingenious and utterly terrifying toys and games, now lies dormant after Veda’s mysterious death. The remaining games are priced like rare works of art, with some fetching millions of dollars at auction.

As Dia and her fellow interns delve into the heart of Darkly, they discover hidden symbols, buried clues, and a web of intrigue. Who are these other teens, and what secrets do they keep? Why were any of them really chosen? The answers lie within the twisted labyrinth of Darkly—a chilling and addictive read by Marisha Pessl.

This summer will be the most twisted Darkly game of all.

“Complex and captivating.” —Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows

Leseprobe
“What may I bring you for dinner this evening?”
        I turn from the airplane window to see the first-class attendant smiling down at me. I study the elegant menu clutched in my hand.
           Normandy lamb chops with mint yogurt sauce
           Side of roast boeuf with Campagna potatoes and hens of the woods
           Poulet anglaise with celeriac compote
        “I’ll take the chicken, please.”
        “And to drink?”
        “Water. Thank you.”
        She jots this down and moves to the passenger behind me. I return my attention to the billowing pink clouds out the window, twisting my shoulders into an uncomfortable angle to make sure my face is hidden from the other passengers in row 1.
        I am a ball of nerves. I feel more fragile and awkward with every mile I am whisked from home.
        I never should have left my mom. I never should have left Pro­logue or the Barnabys, Basil and Agatha, or Missouri.
        Because, with the exception of Missouri, they won’t be able to survive without me. It was clear when I said goodbye this morning. Agatha was whispering to herself, unable to find her glasses, even though they were hanging around her neck on the beaded chain. My mom was tying a price tag of $19.99 on a French garniture set worth $5,000. Basil was stuttering when he asked if I might have time to pick up a Venti coconut latte at Starbucks for him before I left, even though I had just handed him that very beverage. The Barnabys were jumping around like mad, scratching the furniture and leaping onto chandeliers. My mom noted this was a sign all five were about to have kittens, which caused her to wonder how the tomcat got in—the disturbing fact that Prologue Antiques is about to be taken over by a fiefdom of jumpy, black shadow-cats utterly lost on her.
        Making matters worse, something else on this plane makes it clear I have no business being here, and upon landing, I should book a flight home and join witness protection.
        Because there is another one of us on the airplane.
        The boy in 1F.
        I first noticed him standing in a bookstore in Terminal 8, when I was trying to find the gate for my connecting flight. He was flip­ping through an aggressively thick paperback and was so gorgeous that I actually backtracked to make sure he was real, and also to see the title.
      Anna Karenina.
        An hour later, he was boarding my plane.
        He saunters in, tall with moody black hair in his eyes, gray sweats, a cigarette-alley slouch. He sets down two massive leather duffels, one in the aisle so no one can pass, one in the seat beside him that belongs to a bald businessman, who for some reason is intimidated and waits in silent irritation. I notice the side of both bags is emblazoned with a gold Victorian royal pv3, which instantly sets off an alarm bell due to the fact that I have committed the names of the other interns so intrinsically into my brain it’s hard­wired to pick up on anything, however minute, that could evoke one of them.
        It must be Poe Valois III of Paris, France, age seventeen.
        But that’s not even the crazy thing—the boy is carrying a black leather briefcase, and it is handcuffed to his left wrist.
        Like some kind of gangster.
        Whatever priceless thing is inside, it’s been orchestrated with the airline ahead of time. Because as soon as the flight crew see this boy, they’re on high alert, crowding around him and nodding like he’s a sultan. The boy pulls a necklace from his shirt, revealing a collection of tiny strangely shaped black keys. Using one in the form of a circle to unlock the cuff, which falls open in an accordion way I’ve never seen before, he hands the briefcase to the pilot. With a grave nod, as if it contains the boy’s own beating heart, the man whispers, “Thank you for your trust, sir,” before vanishing with it into the cockpit.
        And then—as if nothing at all extraordinary just happened—the boy sits with a yawn, pulls out a laptop covered with cool stick­ers, and starts to compose a classical symphony using some kind of elaborate composition program.
        He writes musical notes across nineteen bars, wearing the same absorbed scowl I once saw on a silver-print portrait of Beethoven—not looking up for an hour. The reason I know it’s a symphony is, at one point, he fusses with the buttons on his head­phones and they lose the Bluetooth connection, and the most beau­tiful, brooding orchestral music I have ever heard blasts out of his computer into first class.
        A few people look up in surprise, and he kills the sound.
        “Sorry for the disturbance, ladies and gentlemen,” he announces with a sheepish grin.
        He has a lilting French accent. So it is Poe Valois III of Paris, France.
        Never in my life could I have imagined a boy to make Choke Newington look dreary. But here, impossibly, is suc…