Share your thoughts in a quick Shelf Talk!
The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist
In a glittering yet treacherous pseudo-Victorian metropolis, a jilted heiress, a scarred man of violence, and a principled doctor are drawn into a clandestine cabal that traps desire and memory within eerie shards of blue glass. As masked galas give way to shadowed laboratories and alleyway chases, the unlikely trio must outwit seduction and conspiracy to stop a scheme that could enthrall an empire. The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters blends gaslamp intrigue, sensual menace, and breathless adventure into a lavish, intoxicating pursuit of dangerous secrets.
Have you read this book? Share what you liked (or didn’t), and we’ll use your answers to recommend your next favorite read!
Love The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters but not sure what to read next?
These picks are popular with readers who enjoyed this book. Complete a quick Shelf Talk to get recommendations made just for you! Warning: possible spoilers for The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters below.
In The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, did you enjoy ...
... sinister Victorian tech and cloak-and-dagger salon conspiracies?
The Difference Engine by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling
If the blue glass cylinders that capture memories and desire, and the masked-house infiltration that Miss Temple survives, hooked you, you’ll love how The Difference Engine turns punch-card computation into a weapon of society. You get back-room deals and salons as dangerous as any duel, the same way Cardinal Chang and Doctor Svenson keep tripping over cabals behind respectable doors. It’s a razor-edged chase through an alternate 19th century where information itself becomes an intoxicant—and a leash.
... secret-society power plays and statecraft threaded through a 19th‑century–feeling world?
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
If you were captivated by the masked cabal pulling strings above ministers and magnates—and by how Miss Temple’s discoveries ripple up into court intrigue—The Traitor Baru Cormorant delivers that same knife-fight of policy and betrayal. Like tracking the conspiracy behind the dream-filled glass, you’ll watch Baru infiltrate an empire from within, trading loyalties, arranging marriages, and using finance the way your Glass Books cabal uses pleasure: as leverage with a cost.
... shifting viewpoints across a richly realized 19th‑century milieu with intersecting agendas?
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
If part of the thrill was moving between Miss Temple’s steel-nerved gambits, Cardinal Chang’s streetwise blade-work, and Doctor Svenson’s clinical deductions, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell gives you that rich chorus of perspectives. You’ll slip among Norrell, Strange, Childermass, and Lady Pole as deftly as you hopped from canal chases to boudoir espionage—only here the salons and ministries are haunted by very real, very political magic.
... perilous sleuthing through a gaslit metropolis laced with forbidden science?
The Affinity Bridge by George Mann
If you loved following clues from a decadent masquerade to laboratories full of illicit devices—and watching Svenson sift evidence while danger closes in—The Affinity Bridge hits the same notes. Investigators Newbury and Hobbes chase a chain of murders through foggy London as airships crash and clockwork secrets surface, echoing the way the blue glass technology turns every discovery in The Glass Books into a deadlier mystery.
... decadent, dreamlike transgressions where science blurs into nightmare?
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
If the illicit pleasures of the memory-glass and those hallucinatory, addictive visions grabbed you—as much as the grotesque consequences of using them—Perdido Street Station amps that sensation to eleven. Isaac’s fringe experiments unleash predators as hypnotic and terrifying as any glass-induced reverie, and the city’s brothels, salons, and back alleys hum with the same heady mix of wonder and corruption that Miss Temple and Cardinal Chang keep stumbling into.
Unlock your personalized book recommendations! Just take a quick Shelf Talk for The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist. It’s only a few questions and takes less than a minute.