Publishers Weekly
★ 06/08/2020
Schwab (the Shades of Magic series) crafts the tale of one woman’s desperate drive to be remembered into a triumphant exploration of love and loss. The story hops across time as it follows the life of Adeline “Addie” LaRue from the French country side in the early 1700s to New York City in 2014. As a young woman, Addie makes a deal with the devil to save herself from the tedium of an arranged marriage, asking for “a chance to live and be free.” The devil grants her immortality but curses her to a life of horrible isolation: no one she meets will be able to remember her. The first half of the book––as Addie learns the limits and loneliness of her curse––is as devastating as it is prescient in these self-isolating times. Which makes Addie’s eventual meeting with Henry, the first person to remember her in some 300 years, all the more joyous. This sweeping fantasy is as much a love story as it is a tribute to storytelling, art, and inspiration. Schwab’s diverse cast is beautifully rendered, and the view of human connection on offer is biting and bitter, yet introspective and sweet. This ambitious and hopeful work is a knockout. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
Praise for The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue:
“For someone damned to be forgettable, Addie LaRue is a most delightfully unforgettable character, and her story is the most joyous evocation of unlikely immortality.”
— Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods and winner of multiple Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards
"Completely absorbed me enough to make me forget the real world." — Jodi Picoult, Washington Post
“Victoria Schwab sends you whirling through a dizzying kaleidoscopic adventure through centuries filled with love, loss, art and war — all the while dazzling your senses with hundreds of tiny magical moments along the way. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue will enchant readers as deeply as its heroine’s Faustian bargain; you will find yourself in quick turns both aching with heartbreak, and gleefully crowing at the truly delicious, wicked cleverness in store.”
— Naomi Novik, Nebula and Locus Award-winning author of Spinning Silver
“Addie Larue is a book perfectly suspended between darkness and light, myth and reality. [This novel] is—ironically—unforgettable.” — Hugo Award winner Alix E. Harrow, author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January
“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is the kind of book you encounter only once in a lifetime. . . . A defiant, joyous rebellion against time, fate, and even death itself—and a powerful reminder that the only magic great enough to conquer all of it is love.”— Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M
“Sweeping in its scope yet wonderfully intimate, it's dark and sexy yet romantic and heartbreaking.” —Rebecca Roanhorse, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Black Sun
“Rich and satisfying.” –Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
“A knockout.” –Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Epic.” –Library Journal, Starred Review
“Deeply romantic, impossibly detailed.” –Booklist, Starred Review
“A delightful surprise and a balm in difficult times..” –BookPage, Starred Review
“Schwab’s page-turner is an achingly poignant romantic fantasy about the desperate desire to make one’s mark on the world.” —Oprah.com, Best LGBTQ Books of 2020
“A beautiful, meditative novel with an ending that hit me right in the heart.” —Buzzfeed, Best Fall Fantasy 2020
"It's a bit cheeky to call The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Faust for romantic bisexual goths, but it's not wrong... I for one will most certainly remember her."—NPR
“Addie is unlike anything Schwab has written before—epic yet intimate, sweeping but not sprawling... If Addie shows anything, it’s that the impact of our actions and interactions can be vaster and longer-lasting than we can predict. Much like the seven freckles that sprinkle Addie’s face, we create our own constellations, and as we live through these darkened days, I feel brighter for having added Addie to mine.”—Slate
“Schwab beautifully explores what it means to be alone for so long that it's jarring and terrifying once you are finally seen...Addie is an independent and fascinating character who manages to make her mark in spite of the odds.”—USA Today
“Schwab’s writing is warm and intense, and the passages set in the past often make you feel as if you’re reading by candlelight...The book is an elegant comment on the erasure of women from recorded history, but not a pointed one; you never feel that Addie LaRue is a metaphor. She is a woman fighting literally to be seen while bearing witness to her own life, and I rooted for her throughout.”—New York Times Book Review
“One of the most propulsive, compulsive and captivating novels in recent memory.”—Washington Post
“There is no particular art to literary fiction that doesn’t exist in fiction of other genres, and V. E. Schwab’s new book The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue isn’t just an amazing book for its genre; it’s an amazing book, full stop...a gorgeous, immersive story...Schwab is an inclusive, ambitious, and exacting writer, and she doesn’t let either her characters or her readers off the hook...This book doesn’t blend genres, or even transcend genre.”—Chicago Review of Books
"This evocative and clever tale will leave you smiling, filled with love and longing for more magical moments in everyday life."—CNN, Best Books of October
"Expansive and utterly heart-wrenching...both heartbreaking and hopeful. I read the last hundred pages well into the night, gasping and sobbing. It’s a beautiful read."—Book Riot, 25 Must Read New Fantasy Books
“A remarkable, genre-defying epic of a woman fighting to thrive in a world that denies her existence....stunning.”—Shelf Awareness for Readers
"When I first finished Addie LaRue, I sat back with a deep sense of wonder. Schwab’s words had weaved their spell and left me starstruck... eloquent and beautiful...Addie LaRue sparks something internally as you read and what is the point of reading, if not to feel?"—The Nerd Daily
“[An] enthralling romantic adventure.”—Business Insider
"A career triumph...Her propulsive, lyric prose is here, her morally complex, entrancing characters, her unique shape of magic, all wrought within this entirely fresh premise that will no doubt become a long-lasting favorite...Addie defies genre, blending romance and history, fantasy and monstrosity, cresting through peaks of time, centered on a young (and also, technically very old) woman with both less and more agency than anyone alive...romantic, ambitious, and defiantly, deliberately hopeful. Epic and intimate at once, it asks what art is...Schwab is simply one of the most skilled writers working in her genre...The feat of this book is frankly awe-inspiring.”—Tor.com
“[Schwab] flexes her beautiful prose and sets the stage for an unforgettable tale.”—SyFy Wire
"Poetic and heartrending, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue is perfect for fans of time travel stories, historical fiction, and fantasy alike." —The Register-Herald
"This spellbinding story is destined to be a classic." —Greatist
"A beautiful tale of star-crossed love, magic, and a dark Faustian Bargain makes The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue the perfect book for the fantasy lover in your life!" —The Mary Sue
"A gender flip version of Faust, and also a haunting love story that will linger." —New York Journal of Books
"A masterpiece that has been so many years in the making, but the wait was truly worth every page...a book that will stay with you long after you finish reading the last word." —Seventeen Magazine
"Irresistibly contagious." — Locus Magazine
“One of the most haunting and bittersweetly beautiful novels I have ever read...a mature, introspective love story, and a thoughtful examination of what it means to have a life well lived.” —Manhattan Mercury News (Kansas)
"Schwab's brilliant epic novel blends fantasy and history, romance and art, as it moves back and forth through time. Addie, one of the author's most morally complex and riveting creations, embarks on adventures both grand and lowly, as she travels, ghostlike, through the centuries." —Bookmarks Magazine
“I was caught in the emotion, the demanded pound of flesh as I considered my own attachments and inherent sense of self, my notions of love and ache and need.” —Historical Novel Society
Library Journal - Audio
12/01/2020
The latest novel by Schwab centers on the Faustian bargain a desperate Addie LaRue makes to avoid an arranged marriage. But in "praying to the Gods that answer after dark," Addie swaps dreary 18th-century domestic life in a French country village for an eternity of a different kind of isolation: She is cursed to be instantly forgotten by everyone she meets. A lonely Addie travels the world, sometimes forcibly moved by Luc, the literally handsome devil to whom she now owes her soul. She must survive by stealing and hiding because she is unable to establish any personal or business relationships: People simply forget her as soon as she leaves their sight. However, as she nears the 300th anniversary of her bargain, she may have discovered a loophole in the curse—when she comes back to his New York City bookstore, Henry remembers Addie stole a book from the shop the day before. From that moment on, the story unfolds from both Addie's and Henry's points of view, a switch that narrator Julia Whelan handles with grace. Whelan's steady pacing allows listeners to savor Schwab's prose while navigating the twists and turns of this well-crafted exploration of the human condition. VERDICT Recommend to those who appreciate atmospheric, character-driven dramas.—Beth Farrell, Cleveland State Univ. Law Lib.
Library Journal
★ 07/01/2020
In 1714 France, desiring a life lived by her own rules, Adeline prays the night before her wedding for freedom. That night her prayers are answered, except the price of her freedom is her name, her life, and her soul. She will live forever, but everyone she meets will forget her moments after the encounter. Living eternally with no presence, teased by a demon to give in and give up, Addie LaRue spends the next 300 years surviving, thieving, and hiding, creating moments that will find expression in art and inspiration, until the day she tries to return a book she stole from a New York City bookstore, and the young man behind the counter remembers her. As Addie learns the truth about Henry's knowledge, they both face choices that will determine the course of their lives—however long they last. Featuring both Addie's and Henry's points of view, this story takes readers through centuries of history, as viewed through the eyes and soul of an incredible and indelible heroine. VERDICT Schwab (A Darker Shade of Magic) returns with another epic story of love and remembrance that probes deep into history while also penetrating profound matters of the heart. [See Prepub Alert, 4/8/20.]—Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton
DECEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
Julia Whelan’s steady rhythm perfectly conveys the ups and downs of Addie LaRue’s life, which take place over 300 years. Addie makes a deal with a dark spirit to live forever. However, the trade-off is being invisible or, more accurately, unmemorable to everyone she meets. Then, one day, something happens. Whelan draws the listener in with a tempo that offers few pauses. Her tone matches the adventurous experiences that bring Addie pain, pleasure, remorse, and so much more. As Whelan jumps back and forth between past and present, a slight change in her tone signals the new setting. Her voice fits each moment, making Addie’s journey both sobering at times and unforgettable. T.E.C. 2021 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2020-07-01
When you deal with the darkness, everything has a price.
“Never pray to the gods that answer after dark.” Adeline tried to heed this warning, but she was desperate to escape a wedding she didn’t want and a life spent trapped in a small town. So desperate that she didn’t notice the sun going down. And so she made a deal: For freedom, and time, she will surrender her soul when she no longer wants to live. But freedom came at a cost. Adeline didn’t want to belong to anyone; now she is forgotten every time she slips out of sight. She has spent 300 years living like a ghost, unable even to speak her own name. She has affairs with both men and women, but she can never have a comfortable intimacy built over time—only the giddy rush of a first meeting, over and over again. So when she meets a boy who, impossibly, remembers her, she can’t walk away. What Addie doesn’t know is why Henry is the first person in 300 years who can remember her. Or why Henry finds her as compelling as she finds him. And, of course, she doesn’t know how the devil she made a deal with will react if he learns that the rules of their 300-year-long game have changed. This spellbinding story unspools in multiple timelines as Addie moves through history, learning the rules of her curse and the whims of her captor. Meanwhile, both Addie and the reader get to know Henry and understand what sets him apart. This is the kind of book you stay up all night reading—rich and satisfying and strange and impeccably crafted.
Spanning centuries and continents, this is a darkly romantic and suspenseful tale by a writer at the top of her game.
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