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The Book of the Most Precious Substance: A Novel
The highly anticipated new thriller from internationally renowned author Sara Gran, author of Come Closer and the Claire DeWitt series.
A mysterious book that promises unlimited power and unrivaled sexual pleasure. A down-on-her-luck book dealer hoping for the sale of a lifetime. And a twist so shocking, no one will come out unscathed.
After a tragedy too painful to bear, former novelist Lily Albrecht has resigned herself to a dull, sexless life as a rare book dealer. Until she gets a lead on a book that just might turn everything around. The Book of the Most Precious Substance is a 17th century manual on sex magic, rumored to be the most powerful occult book ever written—if it really exists at all. And some of the wealthiest people in the world are willing to pay Lily a fortune to find it—if she can. Her search for the book takes her from New York to New Orleans to Munich to Paris, searching the dark corners of power where the world’s wealthiest people use black magic to fulfill their desires. Will Lily fulfill her own desires, and join them? Or will she lose it all searching for a ghost? The Book of the Most Precious Substance is an addictive erotic thriller about the lengths we’ll go to get what we need—and what we want.
A mysterious book that promises unlimited power and unrivaled sexual pleasure. A down-on-her-luck book dealer hoping for the sale of a lifetime. And a twist so shocking, no one will come out unscathed.
After a tragedy too painful to bear, former novelist Lily Albrecht has resigned herself to a dull, sexless life as a rare book dealer. Until she gets a lead on a book that just might turn everything around. The Book of the Most Precious Substance is a 17th century manual on sex magic, rumored to be the most powerful occult book ever written—if it really exists at all. And some of the wealthiest people in the world are willing to pay Lily a fortune to find it—if she can. Her search for the book takes her from New York to New Orleans to Munich to Paris, searching the dark corners of power where the world’s wealthiest people use black magic to fulfill their desires. Will Lily fulfill her own desires, and join them? Or will she lose it all searching for a ghost? The Book of the Most Precious Substance is an addictive erotic thriller about the lengths we’ll go to get what we need—and what we want.
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First published February 8, 2022
387 people are currently reading
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About the author
Sara Gran
16 books2,020 followersSara Gran's most recent book is LITTLE MYSTERIES, available from Dreamland Books on 2/11/25. She is the author of 7 1/2 previous novels, a screenwriter, and a publisher.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,333 reviews
July 25, 2022
Not going to lie, this was entirely unexpected. Well, not entirely--Sara Gran always knows how to hit my emotional center. But I didn't expect her to do it this intimately, in quite this way.
It was billed as horror (it's not), erotic (not really), thriller (it's not that either). What it is is classic Gran: quirky heroine, fabulous use of language, and an emotional complexity that belongs solidly in literary fiction, because, let's face it, 90% of horror/thriller/urban fantasy tends to streamline that in favor of plot and drama. This is a narrator who is now caretaker of the love of her life, a love she found rather late but lived fully, until he quickly succumbed into an advanced dementia-like state. She's maintaining a rare-book business and eventually (See also: not a thriller) gets pulled into searching for The Book of the Most Precious Substance.
I had to set it aside at times because the way she wrote about living with someone whose personality is fading moved me to tears. I was eventually able to soldier on, but the ridiculous amount of time it took me to finish this book is 90% on me--I'm caretaker for my mom with memory issues and it just hit the emotional feels too close for comfort. Had I realized that this was a vital part of Lily's story, I likely wouldn't have requested the book, and would have only approached it when I felt ready (because eventually, I will read all of Gran's work; she's just that good and her catalog is not extensive).
It was billed as horror (it's not), erotic (not really), thriller (it's not that either). What it is is classic Gran: quirky heroine, fabulous use of language, and an emotional complexity that belongs solidly in literary fiction, because, let's face it, 90% of horror/thriller/urban fantasy tends to streamline that in favor of plot and drama. This is a narrator who is now caretaker of the love of her life, a love she found rather late but lived fully, until he quickly succumbed into an advanced dementia-like state. She's maintaining a rare-book business and eventually (See also: not a thriller) gets pulled into searching for The Book of the Most Precious Substance.
I had to set it aside at times because the way she wrote about living with someone whose personality is fading moved me to tears. I was eventually able to soldier on, but the ridiculous amount of time it took me to finish this book is 90% on me--I'm caretaker for my mom with memory issues and it just hit the emotional feels too close for comfort. Had I realized that this was a vital part of Lily's story, I likely wouldn't have requested the book, and would have only approached it when I felt ready (because eventually, I will read all of Gran's work; she's just that good and her catalog is not extensive).
February 8, 2022
NOW AVAILABLE!!!
i was apprehensive about this book at first because although i love books about books, particularly when there's a quest angle to 'em (à la Who’s Who When Everyone Is Someone Else, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, The Shadow of the Wind, Crossings, etc.), i'm much less interested in zee érotique.
don't get me wrong, i'll giggle over monsterotica till the cows cum home, but my track record with literary erotica has been very disappointing, since it always seems to involve characters for whom the fact that they have sex is, like, their defining characteristic, and that's boring as heck.
but—phew—although this is about the adventures of a pair of rare book dealers searching for one of the few remaining copies of The Book of the Most Precious Substance; a 17th-century occult sex magick manual that promises its devotees ultimate power and orgasmic bliss, booknerds are—at the end of the day—still booknerds:
these particular booknerds have loads of sex, but they are refreshingly more than the sum of their private parts.
gran's writing is sharp, funny, relatable, and keenly observant, particularly in the prominent themes of loneliness and failure:
lily albrecht, daughter of this ambition-averse couple, seemed poised for success and happiness; writing an acclaimed novel at a young age and marrying her absolute soulmate before circumstances reduced her to the struggle of supporting herself by dealing rare books and the lonely burden of being a caretaker to a husk of a man who can give her neither physical, emotional, nor intellectual stimulation. abandoned by the literary fair-weather friends who once made up her social circle, she's become a creatively-drained incel, as trapped in a state of existing-without-living as her lump-of-meat hubby.
so, when she's offered the opportunity track down a copy of a mysterious black-magic-book alongside a sophisticated, charismatic gentleman companion; an endeavor promising a huge financial reward, a much-needed change-of-scenery, and the possibility of romantic shenanigans, she jumps at the chance. and if the magic this book contains has indeed been responsible for the wealth and success of countless people over the centuries, perhaps she can use it to turn her own life around.
it's a globe-trotting sexual awakening journey involving clandestine meetings with multiple people who have designated sex-rooms in their homes and books stiffly coated with layers of a few centuries' worth of human sexual fluids.
NB: if you find yourself in the private home of someone with a designated sex-room, you do not want to luminol their libraries.
since others here have already disclosed the Soylent Green reveal of the book's title, i'm gonna risk the torches of the Spoiler Brigade and share this GIF—the first i have ever been inspired to create:
although i recoiled at every scene involving smearing sex juices on books (of which there are many), i really enjoyed this one, and for a novel so saturated with magical elements, the monkey's-paw realism of its ending was melancholy perfection.
PLUS, there's a perfect NYFC-shoutout when lily mentions eating at an indian restaurant in the east village that is ...cheerful, with bright decorations hanging from every possible surface: tinsel, Christmas lights, fake flowers, and is one of my own personal favorite establishments:
come to my blog!
i was apprehensive about this book at first because although i love books about books, particularly when there's a quest angle to 'em (à la Who’s Who When Everyone Is Someone Else, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, The Shadow of the Wind, Crossings, etc.), i'm much less interested in zee érotique.
don't get me wrong, i'll giggle over monsterotica till the cows cum home, but my track record with literary erotica has been very disappointing, since it always seems to involve characters for whom the fact that they have sex is, like, their defining characteristic, and that's boring as heck.
but—phew—although this is about the adventures of a pair of rare book dealers searching for one of the few remaining copies of The Book of the Most Precious Substance; a 17th-century occult sex magick manual that promises its devotees ultimate power and orgasmic bliss, booknerds are—at the end of the day—still booknerds:
Like most book people, there was a shadow in his face, a hollow echo in his laugh, that let you know he'd rather be around books than people. Who could blame him? It was why so many of us were in this business. People had let us down. People had broken our hearts. We liked books and animals and messy rooms full of things that weren't people.
these particular booknerds have loads of sex, but they are refreshingly more than the sum of their private parts.
gran's writing is sharp, funny, relatable, and keenly observant, particularly in the prominent themes of loneliness and failure:
My father was a man with huge, unrealistic dreams and absolutely no acumen for everyday life. What he had in abundance was alcoholism, grandiosity, and maybe manic depression. My mother had studied English at Boston University before she looked for someone to ruin her life and found my father. My parents were both terrified of trying to improve our lives, long sapped of the strength for any more risk. But they approached failure with cheerful bravery, making every move and step down seem like a new adventure for as long as they could.
lily albrecht, daughter of this ambition-averse couple, seemed poised for success and happiness; writing an acclaimed novel at a young age and marrying her absolute soulmate before circumstances reduced her to the struggle of supporting herself by dealing rare books and the lonely burden of being a caretaker to a husk of a man who can give her neither physical, emotional, nor intellectual stimulation. abandoned by the literary fair-weather friends who once made up her social circle, she's become a creatively-drained incel, as trapped in a state of existing-without-living as her lump-of-meat hubby.
so, when she's offered the opportunity track down a copy of a mysterious black-magic-book alongside a sophisticated, charismatic gentleman companion; an endeavor promising a huge financial reward, a much-needed change-of-scenery, and the possibility of romantic shenanigans, she jumps at the chance. and if the magic this book contains has indeed been responsible for the wealth and success of countless people over the centuries, perhaps she can use it to turn her own life around.
it's a globe-trotting sexual awakening journey involving clandestine meetings with multiple people who have designated sex-rooms in their homes and books stiffly coated with layers of a few centuries' worth of human sexual fluids.
NB: if you find yourself in the private home of someone with a designated sex-room, you do not want to luminol their libraries.
since others here have already disclosed the Soylent Green reveal of the book's title, i'm gonna risk the torches of the Spoiler Brigade and share this GIF—the first i have ever been inspired to create:
although i recoiled at every scene involving smearing sex juices on books (of which there are many), i really enjoyed this one, and for a novel so saturated with magical elements, the monkey's-paw realism of its ending was melancholy perfection.
PLUS, there's a perfect NYFC-shoutout when lily mentions eating at an indian restaurant in the east village that is ...cheerful, with bright decorations hanging from every possible surface: tinsel, Christmas lights, fake flowers, and is one of my own personal favorite establishments:
come to my blog!
October 5, 2022
Book dealers travel the world, searching for an extremely rare occult book about sex magic. Greed, power and bodily fluids. Page-turning fun, reminded me of the Polanski film The Ninth Gate.
January 26, 2022
The Book of the Precious Substance is "the rarest, most sought after book in the entire bibliography of the occult." "I never worked with other dealers. I never went chasing after ridiculous books. I never counted money before it was in hand...It was like the book already had me, and was leading me exactly where it wanted."
Published author Lily Albrecht was married to the love of her life, Abel. He had been "a highly renowned writer of academic theory, criticism and obscure histories..."."Once life had been fun and adventurous and full of surprises". A tragic diagnosis ensued. Now Abel was cared for by a Nigerian male nurse named Awe in a small house in upstate New York. Lily was forced to sell off many books to meet the cost of Abel's care. She reinvented herself as a rare book seller.
At an Antiquarian Book Fair, Lily was approached about partnering up to search for The Book of the Precious Substance. A potential buyer was willing to pay upward of six figures for an authenticated copy. "A million dollars and maybe, more enticing, something to do...Just a lonely woman...grabbing at something bright and colorful as it floated by."
Lucas Markson, a rare books archivist and librarian, "had charm unusual in book people...unexpected warmth...despite occasional awkwardness." The hunt for the book would take the duo from New York, to New Orleans, Munich and Paris.
The Book of the Precious Substance was written in 1620. One of three copies, each hand-written in Latin, if still in existence, needed to be found and authenticated before a sale could be completed. The rare occult text on sex magic promised unbridled power upon completion of five steps described within. Black magic would lead to ultimate sexual pleasure. Only the world's wealthiest could afford to pay the big bucks required for this acquisition. "Suddenly, it all seemed silly...a lost book...a dead bookseller, Lucas and his fake smiles and hidden awkwardness...". But, the book had a way of not being captured. Strange things would start to happen in their quest.
"The Book of the Precious Substance" is an erotic thriller written by Sara Gran who continues to amaze with an impressive writing style that propels this novel forward. I admit, however, to not being a fan of erotica. A visit to the world of antiquarian book selling, a window into Lily's life challenges and the life style of eccentrics who practice black magic, make for a fun, unique read with a totally, unexpected ending!
Thank you Dreamland books and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Published author Lily Albrecht was married to the love of her life, Abel. He had been "a highly renowned writer of academic theory, criticism and obscure histories..."."Once life had been fun and adventurous and full of surprises". A tragic diagnosis ensued. Now Abel was cared for by a Nigerian male nurse named Awe in a small house in upstate New York. Lily was forced to sell off many books to meet the cost of Abel's care. She reinvented herself as a rare book seller.
At an Antiquarian Book Fair, Lily was approached about partnering up to search for The Book of the Precious Substance. A potential buyer was willing to pay upward of six figures for an authenticated copy. "A million dollars and maybe, more enticing, something to do...Just a lonely woman...grabbing at something bright and colorful as it floated by."
Lucas Markson, a rare books archivist and librarian, "had charm unusual in book people...unexpected warmth...despite occasional awkwardness." The hunt for the book would take the duo from New York, to New Orleans, Munich and Paris.
The Book of the Precious Substance was written in 1620. One of three copies, each hand-written in Latin, if still in existence, needed to be found and authenticated before a sale could be completed. The rare occult text on sex magic promised unbridled power upon completion of five steps described within. Black magic would lead to ultimate sexual pleasure. Only the world's wealthiest could afford to pay the big bucks required for this acquisition. "Suddenly, it all seemed silly...a lost book...a dead bookseller, Lucas and his fake smiles and hidden awkwardness...". But, the book had a way of not being captured. Strange things would start to happen in their quest.
"The Book of the Precious Substance" is an erotic thriller written by Sara Gran who continues to amaze with an impressive writing style that propels this novel forward. I admit, however, to not being a fan of erotica. A visit to the world of antiquarian book selling, a window into Lily's life challenges and the life style of eccentrics who practice black magic, make for a fun, unique read with a totally, unexpected ending!
Thank you Dreamland books and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
February 20, 2022
Former novelist Lily Albrecht life has fallen apart. Her husband Abel has Alzheimer and her life is reduced to doctor appointments, depression and a sexless existence. At a book fair, a colleague mentions a rare occult book called The Book of the Most Precious Substance. He has a buyer that is willing to pay unlimited money for it. Lily teams up with another colleague, Lucas, and begins the hunt for the book. Along the way, she finds out the book is a five part ritual involving sex and murder. However, she also learns there is a steep price to be paid, and the book will take its pound of flesh.
So about halfway through this I was like why is there so much sex stuff going on. Then I was like, "Misty, they are hunting for a sex magic book. What did you think was going to happen." Yep, I am an idiot. I enjoyed watching Lily going from depressed on the edge of life to a happy, expressive woman. However, the ending didn't fit the book. Least me for it didn't. Whoever plugged this book as horror needs a new job immediately.
So about halfway through this I was like why is there so much sex stuff going on. Then I was like, "Misty, they are hunting for a sex magic book. What did you think was going to happen." Yep, I am an idiot. I enjoyed watching Lily going from depressed on the edge of life to a happy, expressive woman. However, the ending didn't fit the book. Least me for it didn't. Whoever plugged this book as horror needs a new job immediately.
April 10, 2022
Here's my best summary for this book: We talked to this person, then went to this restaurant, ate this food, and this person paid. Then we talked to this person, then went to this restaurant, ate this food, and this person paid. And repeat. And repeat again. This is at least 85% of the book. And in between these episodes the MC has some of the worst sex I've ever read. It wasn't sexy sex, like in a romance. The descriptions were dry, uncomfortable, and just bad. None of it was appealing. The last 25 pages of the book something finally happens, which was the only reason this bumped up from a one star to a two. Really it should be more like a 1.5 stars.
November 13, 2021
I had the best laugh about half way into this novel …
a laugh that only makes sense if you’ve read the first 50%.
“Would you say this is a common occurrence in the book world?” — asked by Detective Frank.
So…. let me explain — a lot of drama is generated around a rare book called “The Book of The Most Precious Substance”. (obvious...the book's title)
Lily and Lucas were book dealers (lovers too - but that’s a story within a story of itself)..
A colleague died. ( that’s also a story within a story),
but
Lily and Lucas were helping fill some of his orders — for the good of his family —
But then a ridiculously wealthy ‘Admiral Masters’ heard that Lily snd Lucas had a way of getting hold of the rare book…. willing to pull out all stops to F-over another buyer and sell it himself—steal it if given the chance.
The book is about war - power - and sex. ….
[sex magic:
the art of using sex to affect change in accordance with one’s will]…
a book about …..
“the most precise, and most effective, grimoire on sex magic ever written. It guides the reader through five steps, each corresponding to a different bodily fluid, and along with it, a specific symbol and a word”….
the book calls it “the nectar of the woman’….next is the life-giving seed of the man���.
“Only one man in a thousand will be able to draw it out of a woman, and only one woman in a thousand will allow it to be drawn”.
“When a women’s pleasure reaches a crescendo, there will be a wave like the ocean, violent and forceful, but sweet and delicious when it crashes”.
Ha…..
Don’t get too swaddled in juicy-naught thinking…
because…
don’t you want to know why a detective Frank even cares… and why he might be asking about a rare book?
Well… things get a little voodoo spooky in the land of Sara Gran’s grand creation.
Admiral Masters was murdered at approximately 4am…
and
…..the question is…..
did another ridiculously wealthy book buyer send someone to take out his competition?
…..and
….are there more stories within a story? That turns the reader upside down and around - in other words a surprise twist?
Yep… all is-ha-‘business as normal’ in the book world 😉
This was pure page-turning fun from start to finish—a surprise offer (thank you Cai) with lots of entertaining surprises to boot.
I’m so tempted to share more about the plot (my first experience reading ‘sock-it-to-me’ *Sara Gran*….whom I found devilishly delightful)…
I’ve several pages of notes should anyone want more of me —
but instead — are you hungry?
How about dinner on 5th Ave. in New York?
(personally, I’m not much of a foodie- but if I were - I might be able to appreciate being dined and wined by two attractive men)…
Leo Singleton (let’s just say — one of several ridiculously wealthy men you’ll meet in Gran’s novel), took Lily and Lucas to a very posh restaurant with luxurious food and alcohol on 5th Avenue with exorbitant prices. (duck, rare lamb chops, mane mushrooms, sea bass crusted with fresh green herbs and hazelnuts, plenty of wine - getting a little drunk- pistachio ice cream, vanilla orange meringues and a plate of tiny white and dark chocolates in unusual flavors: violet, pecan, lemon blossom for dessert-adds a little Brandy to top off the three hour dinner/meeting.
It was the best dinner Lily had in years (with those two attractive men, I mentioned)…
But …. we get a lot more in this novel than just tasty-teasers…
If one ‘must’ indulge in a crime-thriller-novel-(for those of us who do not regularly read crime novels), this unique story about a sought-after rare book adds a new dimension to the words ‘crime’ and ‘book’ in the same sentence.
The characters were interesting— I liked hanging out with them (main and supporting)…
99% of the time I got a great kick out of the detailed descriptions—for ‘every’ major and minor character—for every house (be it a farmhouse in upstate New York, a clean-masculine-impressive apt. in Oakland - or a - ridiculously wealthy- mansion in D.C. or Paris.
But ….
my one tiny quibble —1% quibble…
I had thoughts about some of the descriptions beginning to feel repetitive (in styling) —
yet—
I at the same time, I enjoyed each of the descriptions for its own merit.
Here’s a sample creative-eye-catcher ‘character’ description:
“Elena was unattractively tall—there was nothing wrong with her height, which was about six-three, but she hunched her shoulders, which made her back look bent and put her face and neck at the worst possible angle—chin out, neck doubled, chest sagging. Her nose was big and matched by her forhead,
with cheekbones and chin lagging far behind. But there was much that was appealing about Elena nonetheless; a happiness that shone out from a deep dark point inside”.
And…
a ‘house’ description:
“The entryway to Toby Gunn’s house had twenty-foot-high ceilings and stone walls and marble floors. Tapestries that looked like they were from the 1500s hung from the walls, showing scenes of the unicorns and walled gardens, muffling the noise in the already too-quiet house. A chandelier that was as large as a car hung from the ceiling”.
FUN FUN FUN…
Lily has a sarcastic tone…
which we understand once we are privy to her past history.
The male characters are charismatic & tantalizing—but also puzzling debatable.
Lily - center of every man in this novel has a sarcastic tone which I grew to admire and understand.
It’s clear to me that Sara Gran (tell me that’s not a great name for a woman) knows who she -
she writes with chutzpah — with her shrewd sultry, imperfect characters….
giving us (both)compelling male and female characters…. and a darn gran story….(thrilling, erotic, tantalizing, and never predictable)…
THE BEST TWIST ENDING of the Year!!!
Gloriously entertaining!!
a laugh that only makes sense if you’ve read the first 50%.
“Would you say this is a common occurrence in the book world?” — asked by Detective Frank.
So…. let me explain — a lot of drama is generated around a rare book called “The Book of The Most Precious Substance”. (obvious...the book's title)
Lily and Lucas were book dealers (lovers too - but that’s a story within a story of itself)..
A colleague died. ( that’s also a story within a story),
but
Lily and Lucas were helping fill some of his orders — for the good of his family —
But then a ridiculously wealthy ‘Admiral Masters’ heard that Lily snd Lucas had a way of getting hold of the rare book…. willing to pull out all stops to F-over another buyer and sell it himself—steal it if given the chance.
The book is about war - power - and sex. ….
[sex magic:
the art of using sex to affect change in accordance with one’s will]…
a book about …..
“the most precise, and most effective, grimoire on sex magic ever written. It guides the reader through five steps, each corresponding to a different bodily fluid, and along with it, a specific symbol and a word”….
the book calls it “the nectar of the woman’….next is the life-giving seed of the man���.
“Only one man in a thousand will be able to draw it out of a woman, and only one woman in a thousand will allow it to be drawn”.
“When a women’s pleasure reaches a crescendo, there will be a wave like the ocean, violent and forceful, but sweet and delicious when it crashes”.
Ha…..
Don’t get too swaddled in juicy-naught thinking…
because…
don’t you want to know why a detective Frank even cares… and why he might be asking about a rare book?
Well… things get a little voodoo spooky in the land of Sara Gran’s grand creation.
Admiral Masters was murdered at approximately 4am…
and
…..the question is…..
did another ridiculously wealthy book buyer send someone to take out his competition?
…..and
….are there more stories within a story? That turns the reader upside down and around - in other words a surprise twist?
Yep… all is-ha-‘business as normal’ in the book world 😉
This was pure page-turning fun from start to finish—a surprise offer (thank you Cai) with lots of entertaining surprises to boot.
I’m so tempted to share more about the plot (my first experience reading ‘sock-it-to-me’ *Sara Gran*….whom I found devilishly delightful)…
I’ve several pages of notes should anyone want more of me —
but instead — are you hungry?
How about dinner on 5th Ave. in New York?
(personally, I’m not much of a foodie- but if I were - I might be able to appreciate being dined and wined by two attractive men)…
Leo Singleton (let’s just say — one of several ridiculously wealthy men you’ll meet in Gran’s novel), took Lily and Lucas to a very posh restaurant with luxurious food and alcohol on 5th Avenue with exorbitant prices. (duck, rare lamb chops, mane mushrooms, sea bass crusted with fresh green herbs and hazelnuts, plenty of wine - getting a little drunk- pistachio ice cream, vanilla orange meringues and a plate of tiny white and dark chocolates in unusual flavors: violet, pecan, lemon blossom for dessert-adds a little Brandy to top off the three hour dinner/meeting.
It was the best dinner Lily had in years (with those two attractive men, I mentioned)…
But …. we get a lot more in this novel than just tasty-teasers…
If one ‘must’ indulge in a crime-thriller-novel-(for those of us who do not regularly read crime novels), this unique story about a sought-after rare book adds a new dimension to the words ‘crime’ and ‘book’ in the same sentence.
The characters were interesting— I liked hanging out with them (main and supporting)…
99% of the time I got a great kick out of the detailed descriptions—for ‘every’ major and minor character—for every house (be it a farmhouse in upstate New York, a clean-masculine-impressive apt. in Oakland - or a - ridiculously wealthy- mansion in D.C. or Paris.
But ….
my one tiny quibble —1% quibble…
I had thoughts about some of the descriptions beginning to feel repetitive (in styling) —
yet—
I at the same time, I enjoyed each of the descriptions for its own merit.
Here’s a sample creative-eye-catcher ‘character’ description:
“Elena was unattractively tall—there was nothing wrong with her height, which was about six-three, but she hunched her shoulders, which made her back look bent and put her face and neck at the worst possible angle—chin out, neck doubled, chest sagging. Her nose was big and matched by her forhead,
with cheekbones and chin lagging far behind. But there was much that was appealing about Elena nonetheless; a happiness that shone out from a deep dark point inside”.
And…
a ‘house’ description:
“The entryway to Toby Gunn’s house had twenty-foot-high ceilings and stone walls and marble floors. Tapestries that looked like they were from the 1500s hung from the walls, showing scenes of the unicorns and walled gardens, muffling the noise in the already too-quiet house. A chandelier that was as large as a car hung from the ceiling”.
FUN FUN FUN…
Lily has a sarcastic tone…
which we understand once we are privy to her past history.
The male characters are charismatic & tantalizing—but also puzzling debatable.
Lily - center of every man in this novel has a sarcastic tone which I grew to admire and understand.
It’s clear to me that Sara Gran (tell me that’s not a great name for a woman) knows who she -
she writes with chutzpah — with her shrewd sultry, imperfect characters….
giving us (both)compelling male and female characters…. and a darn gran story….(thrilling, erotic, tantalizing, and never predictable)…
THE BEST TWIST ENDING of the Year!!!
Gloriously entertaining!!
May 3, 2023
The Book of the Most Precious Substance is the latest by one of my favorite contemporary writers, Sara Gran. Author of Come Closer and three mysteries featuring San Francisco private eye Claire DeWitt, Gran put this out in 2021 via a publishing company she launched. Describing her experience with Simon & Schuster a "shit show" with her calls unreturned, Gran felt the subject matter of her new novel didn't lend itself to a publisher's editing suggestions either. Even more so than Come Closer, this dark mystery plunges deep into sex and the supernatural. It's also about one of my favorite subjects: books.
The story is the first-person account of Lily Albrecht, a former novelist in her early forties who's introduced at a big annual book sale near Gramercy Park. Lily has carved a niche for herself as a rare bookseller specializing in a bit of everything, as long as it's unique, obscure and profitable. She's approached by a colleague named Shyman who specializes in military history. He inquires if she's ever heard of a book he calls The Precious Substance. Shyman claims to have a client offering six figures for it. Lily bargains for 33% of the sale if she can find this book for him. In less than 24 hours, Shyman is dead, murdered in an apparent mugging.
Lily approaches a customer named Lucas Markson, head of a rare books department at a university in New York City. A handsome bachelor living well off a dwindling annuity, Lucas is as intrigued by this book as Lily. They agree to work together to locate a copy. Lily is married to a once brilliant writer named Abel who after five years of blissful marriage, slipped into dementia and now exists in a catatonic state at their home, a dreary farmhouse in upstate New York with a 24-hour caregiver. A runaway success with her first novel, Lily has lost her creative fire and accepted that whatever good luck she fell into has abandoned her.
Back home, I tried to put The Book of the Most Precious Substance out of my mind and forget about it. My life was here, upstate. It wasn't so bad. People had it worse, that was for sure. I needed money, but chasing after this book was not a particularly wise or logical way to go about getting it.
And Lucas was something I'd avoided for years. I'd developed a kind of resentment of people who were attractive and looked like they had sex and maybe even enjoyed life. There wasn't really any reason I couldn't date. It wasn't like Abel would be jealous. But I was married. I loved my husband. I didn't love anyone else, and I didn't think I ever would. And I wasn't all that interested in facing the potentially ugly landscape of dating in my forties: looks fading away, career now a dirty and demanding one, responsible for a husband who was now a full-time job. I'd had a few sexual and romantic encounters over the years. They were awkward and unskilled and messy and did not encourage me to seek out more.
In the niche of rare booksellers, everyone knows everyone, and Lucas reports that an acquaintance named Leo Singleton, one of the top rare book men in New York, has seen a copy of The Book of the Most Precious Substance. Leo notifies them that the book was handwritten in 1614 by a Dutchman named Hieronymus Zeel. Only three copies are known to exist now, in very private collections. Leo claims the book consists of five chapters detailing five acts that if executed by a man and a woman with the proper fluids, words and seals, culminates with their wishes being granted. The world's leading authority on sex magic, Aleister Crowley, apparently learned everything he knew from the book.
The husband of a New York bookseller Lily knows tells them that each of the steps bring growing levels of power, but the fifth requires blood from a beating human heart. He believes that their buyer is Oswald Johnson Haber III, one of the richest men in New York. Lily and Lucas feel strangely powerful and emboldened simply thinking about this book. Their confidence leads to Haber retaining them to find a copy and make the owner an offer, money being no object. Haber writes them a check for $100,000 but issues a warning not to sell the book to a man he refers to only as The Fool. If they do, he promises to have them killed.
Shyman's notebook lists five parties who Lily and Lucas believe own The Book of the Most Precious Substance or want it. Haber is listed as The Accountant. There's also The Admiral, TG/LA, The Whore and The Prince. Lily and Lucas become lovers and begin completing each of the five steps with world class sex all over the globe. In Los Angeles they meet The Fool, a tech guru who owns an incomplete copy of the book. In Washington D.C. they meet The Admiral, who covets the book. They make a detour to New Orleans to lose whoever's following them. Then Munich and finally Paris to meet The Whore, who no longer owns the book but warns Lily to drop her pursuit of it. While Lucas seems to covet the book to obtain money, Lily has other ideas.
"Magic is like money, or fame, or any other form of power," Arjun said. "It works. It's real. You can get what you want. Whatever you think will make you happy. But the problem always seems to be that most people are wrong about what will make them happy. Most lottery winners are miserable again within two or three years. Most celebrities are on medication to get through the day. Lord knows we know enough of them."
I knew that about lottery winners and celebrities. But I also knew I wasn't like those people. Most of those people weren't where I was, or had been a few weeks ago--broke, alone, loveless, and sexless. And most of them, I guessed, had vague dreams about money and fame; they'd be prettier, more alluring, smarter. I had no delusions. I knew exactly what I wanted from the book.
And I knew, if the book could deliver it, it would make me happy again.
Sara Gran accomplishes in 90,000 words what Anne Rice (RIP) needed 270,000 words to. The Book of the Most Precious Substance is a contemporary, globetrotting mystery about sex and the occult that flows very well. Novelists love writing about novelists and can get obsessed with the minutiae of a suffering writer. Lily Albrecht is relatable. Giving up her writing career could be anything that she loved but couldn't continue. Earning income as a bookseller could be any dirty job. Gran's love for books shines through. Most of the characters Lily encounters love books, whether they're buyers like Lucas, sellers like her friends, or the rich and strange with their own private libraries.
"Come," Paul said. "The books are in the guesthouse."
The kitchen had a back door and we all walked through the messy yard to a small house, about four hundred square feet, at the other end of the property. The small house was locked up well; it took Paul three keys to let us in, and I noticed all the windows were tightly gated.
Inside I saw why: It was a small, pristine, jewel box of a library, maybe five hundred books, each precisely shelved on dark wood bookshelves. In the middle of the room was a desk in the same dark wood with a laptop and stacks of more books on top. A few chairs and a few library carts, also full of books, took up the rest of the room.
The books themselves were extraordinary. Most were in three areas: New Orleansiana; books about books (always the booksellers' favorite); and magic of all kinds: witchcraft, hoodoo, voodoo, tarot, stage magic, and most of all, sex magic. By now I recognized some of the names: Alice Bunker Stockham, Paschal Beverly Randolph.
I like the way that Gran writes about sex. Lily Albrecht isn't hung up about it. She's an adult and Gran trusts that the reader is too. Like dining in the finest restaurants or traveling first class, sex is something Lily treated herself to earlier in her life and was good at, but she's in a different space now and simply doesn't enjoy it, though not for a lack of trying. It's an honest approach to sexual health that's neither tawdry or skittish. While the novel is short on the sort of intrigue or danger I'd expect in an international thriller, Gran foreshadows just enough to suggest something bad is waiting for our narrator. This all kept me invested to the end.
The story is the first-person account of Lily Albrecht, a former novelist in her early forties who's introduced at a big annual book sale near Gramercy Park. Lily has carved a niche for herself as a rare bookseller specializing in a bit of everything, as long as it's unique, obscure and profitable. She's approached by a colleague named Shyman who specializes in military history. He inquires if she's ever heard of a book he calls The Precious Substance. Shyman claims to have a client offering six figures for it. Lily bargains for 33% of the sale if she can find this book for him. In less than 24 hours, Shyman is dead, murdered in an apparent mugging.
Lily approaches a customer named Lucas Markson, head of a rare books department at a university in New York City. A handsome bachelor living well off a dwindling annuity, Lucas is as intrigued by this book as Lily. They agree to work together to locate a copy. Lily is married to a once brilliant writer named Abel who after five years of blissful marriage, slipped into dementia and now exists in a catatonic state at their home, a dreary farmhouse in upstate New York with a 24-hour caregiver. A runaway success with her first novel, Lily has lost her creative fire and accepted that whatever good luck she fell into has abandoned her.
Back home, I tried to put The Book of the Most Precious Substance out of my mind and forget about it. My life was here, upstate. It wasn't so bad. People had it worse, that was for sure. I needed money, but chasing after this book was not a particularly wise or logical way to go about getting it.
And Lucas was something I'd avoided for years. I'd developed a kind of resentment of people who were attractive and looked like they had sex and maybe even enjoyed life. There wasn't really any reason I couldn't date. It wasn't like Abel would be jealous. But I was married. I loved my husband. I didn't love anyone else, and I didn't think I ever would. And I wasn't all that interested in facing the potentially ugly landscape of dating in my forties: looks fading away, career now a dirty and demanding one, responsible for a husband who was now a full-time job. I'd had a few sexual and romantic encounters over the years. They were awkward and unskilled and messy and did not encourage me to seek out more.
In the niche of rare booksellers, everyone knows everyone, and Lucas reports that an acquaintance named Leo Singleton, one of the top rare book men in New York, has seen a copy of The Book of the Most Precious Substance. Leo notifies them that the book was handwritten in 1614 by a Dutchman named Hieronymus Zeel. Only three copies are known to exist now, in very private collections. Leo claims the book consists of five chapters detailing five acts that if executed by a man and a woman with the proper fluids, words and seals, culminates with their wishes being granted. The world's leading authority on sex magic, Aleister Crowley, apparently learned everything he knew from the book.
The husband of a New York bookseller Lily knows tells them that each of the steps bring growing levels of power, but the fifth requires blood from a beating human heart. He believes that their buyer is Oswald Johnson Haber III, one of the richest men in New York. Lily and Lucas feel strangely powerful and emboldened simply thinking about this book. Their confidence leads to Haber retaining them to find a copy and make the owner an offer, money being no object. Haber writes them a check for $100,000 but issues a warning not to sell the book to a man he refers to only as The Fool. If they do, he promises to have them killed.
Shyman's notebook lists five parties who Lily and Lucas believe own The Book of the Most Precious Substance or want it. Haber is listed as The Accountant. There's also The Admiral, TG/LA, The Whore and The Prince. Lily and Lucas become lovers and begin completing each of the five steps with world class sex all over the globe. In Los Angeles they meet The Fool, a tech guru who owns an incomplete copy of the book. In Washington D.C. they meet The Admiral, who covets the book. They make a detour to New Orleans to lose whoever's following them. Then Munich and finally Paris to meet The Whore, who no longer owns the book but warns Lily to drop her pursuit of it. While Lucas seems to covet the book to obtain money, Lily has other ideas.
"Magic is like money, or fame, or any other form of power," Arjun said. "It works. It's real. You can get what you want. Whatever you think will make you happy. But the problem always seems to be that most people are wrong about what will make them happy. Most lottery winners are miserable again within two or three years. Most celebrities are on medication to get through the day. Lord knows we know enough of them."
I knew that about lottery winners and celebrities. But I also knew I wasn't like those people. Most of those people weren't where I was, or had been a few weeks ago--broke, alone, loveless, and sexless. And most of them, I guessed, had vague dreams about money and fame; they'd be prettier, more alluring, smarter. I had no delusions. I knew exactly what I wanted from the book.
And I knew, if the book could deliver it, it would make me happy again.
Sara Gran accomplishes in 90,000 words what Anne Rice (RIP) needed 270,000 words to. The Book of the Most Precious Substance is a contemporary, globetrotting mystery about sex and the occult that flows very well. Novelists love writing about novelists and can get obsessed with the minutiae of a suffering writer. Lily Albrecht is relatable. Giving up her writing career could be anything that she loved but couldn't continue. Earning income as a bookseller could be any dirty job. Gran's love for books shines through. Most of the characters Lily encounters love books, whether they're buyers like Lucas, sellers like her friends, or the rich and strange with their own private libraries.
"Come," Paul said. "The books are in the guesthouse."
The kitchen had a back door and we all walked through the messy yard to a small house, about four hundred square feet, at the other end of the property. The small house was locked up well; it took Paul three keys to let us in, and I noticed all the windows were tightly gated.
Inside I saw why: It was a small, pristine, jewel box of a library, maybe five hundred books, each precisely shelved on dark wood bookshelves. In the middle of the room was a desk in the same dark wood with a laptop and stacks of more books on top. A few chairs and a few library carts, also full of books, took up the rest of the room.
The books themselves were extraordinary. Most were in three areas: New Orleansiana; books about books (always the booksellers' favorite); and magic of all kinds: witchcraft, hoodoo, voodoo, tarot, stage magic, and most of all, sex magic. By now I recognized some of the names: Alice Bunker Stockham, Paschal Beverly Randolph.
I like the way that Gran writes about sex. Lily Albrecht isn't hung up about it. She's an adult and Gran trusts that the reader is too. Like dining in the finest restaurants or traveling first class, sex is something Lily treated herself to earlier in her life and was good at, but she's in a different space now and simply doesn't enjoy it, though not for a lack of trying. It's an honest approach to sexual health that's neither tawdry or skittish. While the novel is short on the sort of intrigue or danger I'd expect in an international thriller, Gran foreshadows just enough to suggest something bad is waiting for our narrator. This all kept me invested to the end.
October 22, 2022
I held back a smile as I met him. I felt... normal. Not cursed, not overly stressed, no thousand-pound weight on my shoulders. I even felt a little happy.
The book already had me by the throat. If only I'd been smart enough to see it. pg. 123
This is an amazing book.
BASIC PREMISE: Lily is a bookseller, she buys and sells rare books. She hears about a man willing to pay seven figures for a very rare book about dark occult sex magic. It's called THE BOOK OF THE MOST PRECIOUS SUBSTANCE. It's about using sex and sexual fluids to make a deal with the devil or get demons to grant your wish (along that vein). Lily has her own personal problems and may be seeking out the book not for money alone.
REVIEW:
WRITING: I had never read Sara Gran before, but I had heard only good things and her reputation is well-deserved. Her writing is concise, muscular and gritty. She's especially talented at writing from a woman's perspective - in a true and real way, with no sheen or gloss on it. I find this rare. Extra rare because this book revolves around sex and sexual acts, but even if it didn't, her normal, true, realistic feminine portrayal is refreshing and doesn't pull any punches.
It's an immersive, concise, muscular novel that draws you in but spares you any floweriness or unnecessary rambling.
Also, Lily is savage and I was enjoying it immensely. She (and Gran) are funny, smart, and cutting. If you like funny, smart, and cutting heroines, this is a good choice for you.
PLOT: I mean, it's a horror, I don't think this is for everyone. Especially since it is a horror that revolves around making a deal with Satan and using dark sex magic to achieve your dreams. But if you like horror, this is excellent. It's not at all similar to Stephen King nor Kristi DeMeester. They are both excellent, but they excel at kind of... oozing atmosphere in their books, this is much different. The horror builds. You can read the first few chapters easily, even forgetting this is a horror novel. Everything builds up to the ending, and it's not especially a creepy atmosphere or horror on the forefront. It's more about how a normal woman gets sucked into a very bad, demonic situation. It's about how normal evil seems by the end of the book. That kind of thing. Not like something like It or The Shining.
Stephen King is obviously a skilled author, one of the best living IMO, this isn't an attack on his work. But Gran is writing a different kind of horror novel. A tighter, brisker, more down-to-earth one. You might prefer one or the other, the horror genre is wide and vast.
The book is genuinely hair-raising, I got a bit of goosebumps at the end, that's a good feeling when you are reading a horror as far as I'm concerned.
Lily seems like a real person, and even though some of her decision-making is not what I'd personally do, you can see why she makes those decisions, especially since the evil book always has a bit of a hold on her.
I thought SPOILER was a creep from the beginning, the book didn't really SURPRISE me, I hope that wasn't Gran's goal. I didn't call EVERYTHING, but I called enough for the end of the novel not to be a true shock to me (the climax is mainly what I'm talking about here, the aftermath WAS still a surprise). But it was chilling and hair-raising nonetheless. I don't think suspecting what I suspected ruined the book for me at all, it was still very effective and I'm not entirely sure Gran was even intending to surprise me with a twist.
PLOT THEMES: Even though this book is a horror and allegedly the focus of the book is on an evil sex occult book which promises power, money, and wishes granted in exchange for doing wicked and degraded acts (pg. 142), and that IS a main plot point, this book is about many other things.
1.) Books and bookselling. Gran isn't twee or precious at all in describing this. She's also savage in some of her literary takedowns. She perfectly balances the reverence and importance of books with a gritty portrayal of how dirty and grim the profession is at times. If you like books about books but are put off by all the twee, cutesy, book-worship books being published now, give this a glance. It's right up there with Malice House and The Silkworm.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd been excited about a book. Ever since I'd stopped writing and started selling our library, books had gone from being the great delight of my life to a fucking drag. Selling books isn't like selling stocks and bonds, where you sit at a computer all day, or selling houses, where no one expects you to hand-deliver a cabin or a condo. Books are heavy and dirty and messy and have strong smells and leave your skin dry and dusty.
With a little sadness, I now saw I'd come to dread and resent books, every last one. It was a loss. Opening a book had always been like opening a window into a new and mysterious world. When I was a child my books were my best friends. I pored over my picture books, memorizing every line of every drawing. When I moved on to chapter books, I saw that words could illustrate even more than a drawing. In my mind's eye, I could see the exact picture a book painted for me: Times Square with a cricket, a pig's pen with a spider's web, a peach so large that it was its own sweet, sticky world. I wanted to be a writer before I understood what a job was. Books had been the most lasting, profound relationship in my life. I'd long bought and sold a few books for extra money. But once I'd started selling them out of desperation, not luck or love, I'd come to wordlessly feel like even my love of books - like everything else I'd loved - had turned on me and become ugly. pg. 127
2.) Demonic influence, the temptations of evil, Satan, making a deal with the devil, worshiping Satan and how that affects your life, greed, sexual depravity etc. etc. Self-explanatory.
I was usually a very honest person. But the book had already reached a long tentacle into my head, twisting my thoughts. In a few days, I had convinced myself that I not only wanted the book, but needed it. pg. 108
3.) Sex. This is a very sex-heavy book. It's not EROTIC, Gran's not writing to titillate IMO, but there's a lot of discussions about sex and on-page sex and described sex acts in here. I was loving it. Gran's frank, unabashed, female-perspective view on sex and sex acts was golden. It's very rare and important. I thought her points about sex and pleasure were amazing and she did a great job of discussing and portraying sex. Props to her.
He could see that I was ready, but we weren't looking for ordinary good sex here. We were looking for magic. pg. 291
4.) Money. This is a huge theme of the book. Greed. What people will do for money. How money doesn't lead to happiness or guarantee it. It's quite heavily explored and discussed.
All that money and no happiness.
People thought money would make them happy. But money was the consolation prize in life. Money was what you had left to dream for when all the other dreams died. Money was what would keep you going when nothing else could delight you again. pg. 258
There are some excellent portraits of Rich People in this.
5.) Grief. This book is, in reality, a book about grief. How grief affects our lives, how we learn to deal with it or let it consume us. Lily's grief is all-consuming and shapes her life into a sad, bleak wasteland. It takes Satan of all people to kind of snap her out of it and take a look around.
I enjoy when horror has an underlying, true horror theme. In this one, the true horror is grief. Even though it's allegedly about dealing with Satan, the book is actually about the horrors of grief. Kind of like The Shining is often said to be actually about alcoholism and the horrors of alcoholism - the true horror is that and not dead people haunting a hotel or rivers of blood or etc. (I argue in my review that it's ACTUALLY about bad tempers and abusive males and not even about alcoholism once you scratch deeper, but I realize I am in the minority here).
Every day my heart broke more and more and then one day I realized there was nothing left to break. It was all broken. pg. 44
6.) Food. Let's not forget about food, lovingly and exquisitely described in detail by Gran. In much the way sex is appreciated in this novel, food is as well and Gran never misses and opportunity to describe the luscious foods her characters are eating and how much they enjoy them.
In the café I got a plate of eggs cooked with tomatoes and a salad of green herbs with a sweet-tart pomegranate dressing. With it was a basket of hot bread just out of the oven. The woman running the place was about my age and kept refilling my tiny glass of hot black tea with mint and sugar in it. When she brought my food she looked old and hard, but when she wasn't working, she sat at a table by the register and texted with someone who made her laugh and blush. Each text made her younger and softer. pg. 216
TL;DR: If you are looking for a great, hard-hitting horror for Halloween... this is going to be an odd choice. It doesn't exactly go the route of classic horror (King, Lovecraft, Susan Hill). Instead it is more like a book where the horror creeps up on you. I can't think of another example of this right now, I know there are some.
Gran's writing is great: sparse, clean, gritty. Her female MC is smart, cutting, a realistic woman with no false feminine filter hiding the way things really are from you.
Apparently it had been a bestseller. His book made me feel good about not having published in more than a decade. pg. 118
If the idea of a horror which revolves around demonic bargains, evil sex magic, greed, and crippling grief appeals to you - that's this book in a nutshell. As advertised.
It's worth the price of admission just for Gran's writing and her female MC, IMO. Speaking of price, this is pretty cheap on Amazon. And book prices are just WILD, this gem is cheap and then they want like $30 for the bestsellers that are coming out that are SHIT. It baffles me what makes the bestseller list and what sells for $30 vs. hidden gems that no one knows about and sell for, you know, five bucks or whatever. MIND-BOGGLING. Don't even get me started on book-pricing nowadays, it's insane. Use your local library and save money. You could go broke buying books, and I'm sure people spend insane amounts of money for books that end up being SHIT.
Anyway. Great book, worth reading, pick it up if it sounds interesting to you. Talented writer and IMO a horror payoff.
They had fooled me into thinking life would be an endlessly fascinating adventure. I'd look at other people's lives - at their boredom, their drudgery, their pain - and imagine that my book had given me the key to escape from all of that.
I wasn't just wrong. I was wrong in such a vast and specific way that I felt like the punch line of a cruel joke. pg. 246
NAMES IN THIS BOOK:
The book already had me by the throat. If only I'd been smart enough to see it. pg. 123
This is an amazing book.
BASIC PREMISE: Lily is a bookseller, she buys and sells rare books. She hears about a man willing to pay seven figures for a very rare book about dark occult sex magic. It's called THE BOOK OF THE MOST PRECIOUS SUBSTANCE. It's about using sex and sexual fluids to make a deal with the devil or get demons to grant your wish (along that vein). Lily has her own personal problems and may be seeking out the book not for money alone.
REVIEW:
WRITING: I had never read Sara Gran before, but I had heard only good things and her reputation is well-deserved. Her writing is concise, muscular and gritty. She's especially talented at writing from a woman's perspective - in a true and real way, with no sheen or gloss on it. I find this rare. Extra rare because this book revolves around sex and sexual acts, but even if it didn't, her normal, true, realistic feminine portrayal is refreshing and doesn't pull any punches.
It's an immersive, concise, muscular novel that draws you in but spares you any floweriness or unnecessary rambling.
Also, Lily is savage and I was enjoying it immensely. She (and Gran) are funny, smart, and cutting. If you like funny, smart, and cutting heroines, this is a good choice for you.
PLOT: I mean, it's a horror, I don't think this is for everyone. Especially since it is a horror that revolves around making a deal with Satan and using dark sex magic to achieve your dreams. But if you like horror, this is excellent. It's not at all similar to Stephen King nor Kristi DeMeester. They are both excellent, but they excel at kind of... oozing atmosphere in their books, this is much different. The horror builds. You can read the first few chapters easily, even forgetting this is a horror novel. Everything builds up to the ending, and it's not especially a creepy atmosphere or horror on the forefront. It's more about how a normal woman gets sucked into a very bad, demonic situation. It's about how normal evil seems by the end of the book. That kind of thing. Not like something like It or The Shining.
Stephen King is obviously a skilled author, one of the best living IMO, this isn't an attack on his work. But Gran is writing a different kind of horror novel. A tighter, brisker, more down-to-earth one. You might prefer one or the other, the horror genre is wide and vast.
The book is genuinely hair-raising, I got a bit of goosebumps at the end, that's a good feeling when you are reading a horror as far as I'm concerned.
Lily seems like a real person, and even though some of her decision-making is not what I'd personally do, you can see why she makes those decisions, especially since the evil book always has a bit of a hold on her.
I thought SPOILER was a creep from the beginning, the book didn't really SURPRISE me, I hope that wasn't Gran's goal. I didn't call EVERYTHING, but I called enough for the end of the novel not to be a true shock to me (the climax is mainly what I'm talking about here, the aftermath WAS still a surprise). But it was chilling and hair-raising nonetheless. I don't think suspecting what I suspected ruined the book for me at all, it was still very effective and I'm not entirely sure Gran was even intending to surprise me with a twist.
PLOT THEMES: Even though this book is a horror and allegedly the focus of the book is on an evil sex occult book which promises power, money, and wishes granted in exchange for doing wicked and degraded acts (pg. 142), and that IS a main plot point, this book is about many other things.
1.) Books and bookselling. Gran isn't twee or precious at all in describing this. She's also savage in some of her literary takedowns. She perfectly balances the reverence and importance of books with a gritty portrayal of how dirty and grim the profession is at times. If you like books about books but are put off by all the twee, cutesy, book-worship books being published now, give this a glance. It's right up there with Malice House and The Silkworm.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd been excited about a book. Ever since I'd stopped writing and started selling our library, books had gone from being the great delight of my life to a fucking drag. Selling books isn't like selling stocks and bonds, where you sit at a computer all day, or selling houses, where no one expects you to hand-deliver a cabin or a condo. Books are heavy and dirty and messy and have strong smells and leave your skin dry and dusty.
With a little sadness, I now saw I'd come to dread and resent books, every last one. It was a loss. Opening a book had always been like opening a window into a new and mysterious world. When I was a child my books were my best friends. I pored over my picture books, memorizing every line of every drawing. When I moved on to chapter books, I saw that words could illustrate even more than a drawing. In my mind's eye, I could see the exact picture a book painted for me: Times Square with a cricket, a pig's pen with a spider's web, a peach so large that it was its own sweet, sticky world. I wanted to be a writer before I understood what a job was. Books had been the most lasting, profound relationship in my life. I'd long bought and sold a few books for extra money. But once I'd started selling them out of desperation, not luck or love, I'd come to wordlessly feel like even my love of books - like everything else I'd loved - had turned on me and become ugly. pg. 127
2.) Demonic influence, the temptations of evil, Satan, making a deal with the devil, worshiping Satan and how that affects your life, greed, sexual depravity etc. etc. Self-explanatory.
I was usually a very honest person. But the book had already reached a long tentacle into my head, twisting my thoughts. In a few days, I had convinced myself that I not only wanted the book, but needed it. pg. 108
3.) Sex. This is a very sex-heavy book. It's not EROTIC, Gran's not writing to titillate IMO, but there's a lot of discussions about sex and on-page sex and described sex acts in here. I was loving it. Gran's frank, unabashed, female-perspective view on sex and sex acts was golden. It's very rare and important. I thought her points about sex and pleasure were amazing and she did a great job of discussing and portraying sex. Props to her.
He could see that I was ready, but we weren't looking for ordinary good sex here. We were looking for magic. pg. 291
4.) Money. This is a huge theme of the book. Greed. What people will do for money. How money doesn't lead to happiness or guarantee it. It's quite heavily explored and discussed.
All that money and no happiness.
People thought money would make them happy. But money was the consolation prize in life. Money was what you had left to dream for when all the other dreams died. Money was what would keep you going when nothing else could delight you again. pg. 258
There are some excellent portraits of Rich People in this.
5.) Grief. This book is, in reality, a book about grief. How grief affects our lives, how we learn to deal with it or let it consume us. Lily's grief is all-consuming and shapes her life into a sad, bleak wasteland. It takes Satan of all people to kind of snap her out of it and take a look around.
I enjoy when horror has an underlying, true horror theme. In this one, the true horror is grief. Even though it's allegedly about dealing with Satan, the book is actually about the horrors of grief. Kind of like The Shining is often said to be actually about alcoholism and the horrors of alcoholism - the true horror is that and not dead people haunting a hotel or rivers of blood or etc. (I argue in my review that it's ACTUALLY about bad tempers and abusive males and not even about alcoholism once you scratch deeper, but I realize I am in the minority here).
Every day my heart broke more and more and then one day I realized there was nothing left to break. It was all broken. pg. 44
6.) Food. Let's not forget about food, lovingly and exquisitely described in detail by Gran. In much the way sex is appreciated in this novel, food is as well and Gran never misses and opportunity to describe the luscious foods her characters are eating and how much they enjoy them.
In the café I got a plate of eggs cooked with tomatoes and a salad of green herbs with a sweet-tart pomegranate dressing. With it was a basket of hot bread just out of the oven. The woman running the place was about my age and kept refilling my tiny glass of hot black tea with mint and sugar in it. When she brought my food she looked old and hard, but when she wasn't working, she sat at a table by the register and texted with someone who made her laugh and blush. Each text made her younger and softer. pg. 216
TL;DR: If you are looking for a great, hard-hitting horror for Halloween... this is going to be an odd choice. It doesn't exactly go the route of classic horror (King, Lovecraft, Susan Hill). Instead it is more like a book where the horror creeps up on you. I can't think of another example of this right now, I know there are some.
Gran's writing is great: sparse, clean, gritty. Her female MC is smart, cutting, a realistic woman with no false feminine filter hiding the way things really are from you.
Apparently it had been a bestseller. His book made me feel good about not having published in more than a decade. pg. 118
If the idea of a horror which revolves around demonic bargains, evil sex magic, greed, and crippling grief appeals to you - that's this book in a nutshell. As advertised.
It's worth the price of admission just for Gran's writing and her female MC, IMO. Speaking of price, this is pretty cheap on Amazon. And book prices are just WILD, this gem is cheap and then they want like $30 for the bestsellers that are coming out that are SHIT. It baffles me what makes the bestseller list and what sells for $30 vs. hidden gems that no one knows about and sell for, you know, five bucks or whatever. MIND-BOGGLING. Don't even get me started on book-pricing nowadays, it's insane. Use your local library and save money. You could go broke buying books, and I'm sure people spend insane amounts of money for books that end up being SHIT.
Anyway. Great book, worth reading, pick it up if it sounds interesting to you. Talented writer and IMO a horror payoff.
They had fooled me into thinking life would be an endlessly fascinating adventure. I'd look at other people's lives - at their boredom, their drudgery, their pain - and imagine that my book had given me the key to escape from all of that.
I wasn't just wrong. I was wrong in such a vast and specific way that I felt like the punch line of a cruel joke. pg. 246
NAMES IN THIS BOOK:
May 19, 2022
Novelist Lily Albrecht once had the world by the tail. Her first book gathered her international renown and a lot of money as well. She was living her dreams with a man that she deeply loved when the fates pulled the rug out from under her and left her life in shambles. Now, no longer able to write, she has settled into a boring, soulless life as a used book dealer.
Lily takes no pleasure in the job, which barely pays her expenses. But then, at a book fair, she's approached by another dealer named Shyman who wants to know if Lily has ever heard of a seventeenth-century manual on sex and magic called The Book of the Most precious Substance. Only five hand-written copies of the book ever existed and of those, only three apparently survive. It's alleged that those who are able to complete the five sexual steps outlined in the book will gain unimaginable power.
Shyman says that there's a wealthy buyer searching for the book who would be willing to spend millions of dollars to own it. If Lily could somehow find a copy, Shyman would sell the book to his buyer, who for obvious reasons he doesn't name, and pay Lily a very handsome commission for assisting in the process. Lily is intrigued by the idea but almost immediately thereafter, Shyman is mugged and killed, leaving Lily with no idea who the buyer might be, assuming she can even find a copy of the book in the first place.
Lily teams up with Lucas Markson, a rare books librarian at a major university, in an effort to find a copy of the book. Lucas has connections in the rarified world of the antiquarian book trade that give them a lead to one of the copies and thus the search begins, both for the book itself and for Shyman's mysterious buyer.
Lily and Markson follow slender leads that take them from America to Europe and Asia in search of the elusive manual. But The Book of the Most Precious Substance exerts a powerful influence even over those who are simply searching for it, and the quest itself proves to be exceedingly dangerous, leading Lily and Markson both down a very dark, erotic path that may consume the both of them.
I'm a huge fan of Gran's Claire DeWitt novels and, to my mind, this book illustrates even more Gran's immense talent. It's a taut, very sexy, literary thriller and a great character study as well that draws the reader in from the very first sentence. The glimpse into the world of the antiquarian book business is intriguing and there are a number of great set pieces within the story that are worth the price of the book all by themselves. Be forewarned: this is not a book that will be to everyone's taste, but I found it to be the most unique and entertaining novel I've read so far this year and I can hardly wait to see what Sara Gran does next.
Lily takes no pleasure in the job, which barely pays her expenses. But then, at a book fair, she's approached by another dealer named Shyman who wants to know if Lily has ever heard of a seventeenth-century manual on sex and magic called The Book of the Most precious Substance. Only five hand-written copies of the book ever existed and of those, only three apparently survive. It's alleged that those who are able to complete the five sexual steps outlined in the book will gain unimaginable power.
Shyman says that there's a wealthy buyer searching for the book who would be willing to spend millions of dollars to own it. If Lily could somehow find a copy, Shyman would sell the book to his buyer, who for obvious reasons he doesn't name, and pay Lily a very handsome commission for assisting in the process. Lily is intrigued by the idea but almost immediately thereafter, Shyman is mugged and killed, leaving Lily with no idea who the buyer might be, assuming she can even find a copy of the book in the first place.
Lily teams up with Lucas Markson, a rare books librarian at a major university, in an effort to find a copy of the book. Lucas has connections in the rarified world of the antiquarian book trade that give them a lead to one of the copies and thus the search begins, both for the book itself and for Shyman's mysterious buyer.
Lily and Markson follow slender leads that take them from America to Europe and Asia in search of the elusive manual. But The Book of the Most Precious Substance exerts a powerful influence even over those who are simply searching for it, and the quest itself proves to be exceedingly dangerous, leading Lily and Markson both down a very dark, erotic path that may consume the both of them.
I'm a huge fan of Gran's Claire DeWitt novels and, to my mind, this book illustrates even more Gran's immense talent. It's a taut, very sexy, literary thriller and a great character study as well that draws the reader in from the very first sentence. The glimpse into the world of the antiquarian book business is intriguing and there are a number of great set pieces within the story that are worth the price of the book all by themselves. Be forewarned: this is not a book that will be to everyone's taste, but I found it to be the most unique and entertaining novel I've read so far this year and I can hardly wait to see what Sara Gran does next.
September 26, 2025
A literary thriller about love and loss, family and friends, sex and magic, esoterica and the dark arts, obsession and power, and how events seemingly shift from good to bad and back to good again throughout one's journey in life; the lengths people are willing to go in order to get what they think they need. A very good read indeed, recommended.
2023 Read
2023 Read
August 4, 2025
I don't know if I've ever been so bored with such a short book. I didn't read the last 15 pages and genuinely don't care how it ended.
November 23, 2022
one day we were asked to find this rare book. we went and asked this person if they had the book but they said no. then we went to this other person and asked about the book and they said no. we went to the next person and asked about the book and they also said no. we then took a flight to ask another person about the book but they also said no. so we asked another person about the b
April 24, 2023
I think I liked it? This was a strange, sensual ride into the world of rare book dealers, sex cults and rituals. The idea that power, and the control of it, can be gained through certain acts and the different types of power people want when money means nothing anymore. It was certainly a ride.
September 24, 2023
oh my. the most precious substance... if i had known in advance just what substance this book was named for, i certainly wouldn't have been any less eager to read it.
this is a very unique erotic literary thriller about a lonely book dealer who is swept into a strange mission to retrieve the eponymous book. within our story, the book of the most precious substance is a rare centuries-old book of sex magic, said to bring great power to anyone who is able to perform the five part ritual with the five bodily fluids.
lily has been living a joyless life for years, since her husband (ironically named abel) was severely debilitated by a rare form of early onset dementia. formerly an artsy intellectual couple living indulgent creative lives together, now abel requires full time care, and lily deals books as means of financial survival.
but things change when she joins another book dealer, lucas, in securing the book of the most precious substance. as they move from city to city tracking the book, they begin the five part ritual from its pages. with each substance, they fall deeper under the book's spell, leading up to the climactic fifth substance, which must be blood from a beating heart.
that's a general synopsis, but most of the substance of the book itself is a sensory whirlwind. lucas and lily travel from NY to LA to new orleans, to munich and to paris. they meet with a score of quirky characters, most of them filthy rich and indulgent (most notably, a coven of dominatrix witches who help lily unlock her precious substance for the first time). there are many unique living spaces, all described in rich detail: artsy communal houses, opulent high-security mansions, an ancient castle-like french home. all of these in different cities with long histories. our characters enjoy meal after fancy meal, all described in vivid detail. bottle after bottle of wine. the book itself is an indulgent adventure of sensory experiences. i wonder if that's what it's like to be a wealthy traveler?
once the ritual has begun, lily feels that she is on an inevitable path. she, lucas, and the book are tied together, racing toward their fate together. lily has good reason to want the big payoff from securing this absurdly rare book. but is anyone ever really happy, once they get what they need? when you desire something so deeply, will it ever be what you expect?
i really enjoyed this book, and living vicariously through all its indulgent descriptions of food and sex and travel to beautiful places. it's thrilling and often absurd, but it has substance. it's about the type of deep loneliness that you start to forget because you've become so accustomed to living deep inside it, and what happens when you emerge from it unexpectedly, and drop into a different life. it's about knowing you can't trust anyone, but choosing to follow the path before you regardless. it's a strange trip, and i enjoyed it.
this is a very unique erotic literary thriller about a lonely book dealer who is swept into a strange mission to retrieve the eponymous book. within our story, the book of the most precious substance is a rare centuries-old book of sex magic, said to bring great power to anyone who is able to perform the five part ritual with the five bodily fluids.
lily has been living a joyless life for years, since her husband (ironically named abel) was severely debilitated by a rare form of early onset dementia. formerly an artsy intellectual couple living indulgent creative lives together, now abel requires full time care, and lily deals books as means of financial survival.
but things change when she joins another book dealer, lucas, in securing the book of the most precious substance. as they move from city to city tracking the book, they begin the five part ritual from its pages. with each substance, they fall deeper under the book's spell, leading up to the climactic fifth substance, which must be blood from a beating heart.
that's a general synopsis, but most of the substance of the book itself is a sensory whirlwind. lucas and lily travel from NY to LA to new orleans, to munich and to paris. they meet with a score of quirky characters, most of them filthy rich and indulgent (most notably, a coven of dominatrix witches who help lily unlock her precious substance for the first time). there are many unique living spaces, all described in rich detail: artsy communal houses, opulent high-security mansions, an ancient castle-like french home. all of these in different cities with long histories. our characters enjoy meal after fancy meal, all described in vivid detail. bottle after bottle of wine. the book itself is an indulgent adventure of sensory experiences. i wonder if that's what it's like to be a wealthy traveler?
once the ritual has begun, lily feels that she is on an inevitable path. she, lucas, and the book are tied together, racing toward their fate together. lily has good reason to want the big payoff from securing this absurdly rare book. but is anyone ever really happy, once they get what they need? when you desire something so deeply, will it ever be what you expect?
i really enjoyed this book, and living vicariously through all its indulgent descriptions of food and sex and travel to beautiful places. it's thrilling and often absurd, but it has substance. it's about the type of deep loneliness that you start to forget because you've become so accustomed to living deep inside it, and what happens when you emerge from it unexpectedly, and drop into a different life. it's about knowing you can't trust anyone, but choosing to follow the path before you regardless. it's a strange trip, and i enjoyed it.
February 20, 2023
✦ the occult, rare books, sex magic, bodily fluids, murder, greed, power. fun!
✦ definitely an interesting and quite an unique read overall. only 3 stars because it dragged at times and was a little repetitive in some ways.
✦ definitely an interesting and quite an unique read overall. only 3 stars because it dragged at times and was a little repetitive in some ways.
August 8, 2022
Well, the least I can say is that this book is very different from everything I've read this year. But unfortunately, I can't say it is for the better, alas. Where the story is quite original, the main character, Lily, is someone I couldn't related to.
First, let's talk about the elephant in the room: yes there are some erotic scenes. Only towards the end there are one or two that are explicit, all the rest is a bit of kissing and innuendo, nothing shocking in my opinion. And the scenes aren't gratuitous. After all, the title of the book already points to it, you know you'll walk into that territory. I liked the fact that the whole story takes place around old and rare books, an area I was interested in myself when I was a bit younger, so I found some hooks there that kept me reading. Also the fact that the two protagonists start to travel around the States and then even to Munich and Paris was captivating.
But there were two letdowns for me: first of all the voice of Lily (and I mean the written voice as it wasn't an audiobook), which I found very dull and flat. I guess the writer has written her dialogues and inner monologues as they are because as a person she also is very superficial and dull, but it didn't do any good in relating to the character. And secondly there is the credibility of the story. You have to get past a lot of disbelief to get along with the whole storyline which turns out to be quite ludicrous in the end.
A sincere thanks to NetGalley and Dreamland Books and the author for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
First, let's talk about the elephant in the room: yes there are some erotic scenes. Only towards the end there are one or two that are explicit, all the rest is a bit of kissing and innuendo, nothing shocking in my opinion. And the scenes aren't gratuitous. After all, the title of the book already points to it, you know you'll walk into that territory. I liked the fact that the whole story takes place around old and rare books, an area I was interested in myself when I was a bit younger, so I found some hooks there that kept me reading. Also the fact that the two protagonists start to travel around the States and then even to Munich and Paris was captivating.
But there were two letdowns for me: first of all the voice of Lily (and I mean the written voice as it wasn't an audiobook), which I found very dull and flat. I guess the writer has written her dialogues and inner monologues as they are because as a person she also is very superficial and dull, but it didn't do any good in relating to the character. And secondly there is the credibility of the story. You have to get past a lot of disbelief to get along with the whole storyline which turns out to be quite ludicrous in the end.
A sincere thanks to NetGalley and Dreamland Books and the author for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
November 6, 2022
What a strange and wonderful book, I enjoyed this *immensely.*
September 11, 2022
"Sex is something I don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away."
--J.D. Salinger via Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye
POV: You're me reading a list of upcoming 2022 novels:
"An erotic thriller..."
Oh, nah, I'm good, dog, thanks.
".....by Sara Gran"
Oh freaking hell. Nevermind, I wanna read the shit out of that.
Oh, Sara Gran, you minx! I would read the proverbial phonebook if she wrote it cause that would be one wacky yet exquisitely melancholy phonebook. Her writing is so full of her simultaneously otherworldly and earthy reflections on one of her fixations: how trauma reinvents us. It feels like she takes her pain and pours it into you and a flower grows there. And you are never the same because of this goddamn beautiful flower and somehow you are both a little better for it even though you're like 500 degrees of separation from Sara Gran.
Ok, I know what you're thinking:
Her vibe is just contagious and I'm not a professional word writing person.
Lily Albrecht, however, was once a celebrated author with the perfect husband before life punched her hard in the face and left her once brilliant husband virtually catatonic with unexplained early onset dementia. Then one day another bookseller approaches her at a book fair about a rare magic text called "The Book of the Most Precious Substance." This sets wheels in motion and as Gran reminds us--maybe too many times--Lily and her hunky yet intellectual bookselling partner-in-crime Lucas aren't the ones in the driver's seat. And while they're having fun for now chasing the book across countries and oceans and doing sex stuff and eating fancy cheeses (as the story progresses, the sensuality of all things increases: food, sheets, smells, physical and....personal geography, etc.), they may not like where this is going.
Now I had to admit: All my excuses were lies. Shit and lies
It turns out this rare text is a book of sex magic, so hence the "erotic" part. There is a good amount of explicit sex but this isn't a book about 50 Shades of mindless banging. Grief, the kind that fills your marrow, is never far from the author's mind:
"The answer is different for everyone. But you need to somehow begin again. The old you, the old life--it's over. Gone forever. And it's very sad, because you lose the person who your wife--your husband--loved. It's another loss. After I met Madame, I found out how I was now. Who is this new person, this person who has lost so much, been so scarred?"
The other women at the table nodded knowingly.....I could see each had some understanding of what Kat and I knew: a loss so dark it changed who you were, changed the planet you lived on, changed what words meant.
It's about the journey. The kinky, sad, fucked up journey. Like always.
I liked this, although I liked Gran's Claire DeWitt detective series better (start with Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, the first in what is for now a trilogy.) Gran also wrote a delightfully spiteful horror novella, Come Closer, which feels like a spiritual cousin to this. Actually Claire DeWitt feels like a spiritual cousin to this book's Lily, but she's way too savvy to ever fall for Aleister Crowley's The Joy of Sex.
I can already feel the shivers the last chapter gave me sticking to my ribs.
February 19, 2022
3.0 Stars
Come Closer is one of my all time favourite horror stories so naturally I had to check out the author's newest release. This is more of an erotica thriller rather than a traditional horror novel. I enjoyed the steamy bits, but unfortunately I did not connect with the main plot.
Come Closer is one of my all time favourite horror stories so naturally I had to check out the author's newest release. This is more of an erotica thriller rather than a traditional horror novel. I enjoyed the steamy bits, but unfortunately I did not connect with the main plot.
July 31, 2025
ugh this dragged ass. so disappointing
May 23, 2022
Repetitive
Fly to a city, go to a fancy hotel, talk to a bookseller, eat a fancy meal, have sex. Rinse, repeat. It didn’t get interesting until the last 10% of the book, and by then it was so predictable that it was barely worth finishing. The characters were well-developed, albeit unlikeable, so there’s that.
Fly to a city, go to a fancy hotel, talk to a bookseller, eat a fancy meal, have sex. Rinse, repeat. It didn’t get interesting until the last 10% of the book, and by then it was so predictable that it was barely worth finishing. The characters were well-developed, albeit unlikeable, so there’s that.
October 21, 2022
This story has it all! Books, rare books, rare book dealers, sex, magic, and the occult - FANTASTIC. Fast-paced and a lot of fun! Highly recommended!
December 17, 2022
This book was utterly fantastic and unexpected. A very dark, mystery book about books that gave off The Shadow of the Wind vibes, but sexier. This is certainly very centric around sex and sex magic and tackles this in a very mature and passionate way - this most definitely isn’t a smut novel. It’s about the hunt for a very special occult book and our main character’s drive to find it.
It gave me everything I love in a book; passion for literature, sex positivity, mystery and strong romantic and sexual chemistry. I adored The Book of the Most Precious Substance, Sara Gran’s writing style captivated me and made me desperate for more.
In short, this book was brilliant. Five stars. Superb, atmospheric, sexy and hypnotic. It is incredibly dark though and at times has violent moments so check out TWs if needed. It’s like the Shadow of the Wind had a baby with something Taylor Jenkins Reid had written and then add in some passionate, sexual moments and boom. You have this epic creation!
It gave me everything I love in a book; passion for literature, sex positivity, mystery and strong romantic and sexual chemistry. I adored The Book of the Most Precious Substance, Sara Gran’s writing style captivated me and made me desperate for more.
In short, this book was brilliant. Five stars. Superb, atmospheric, sexy and hypnotic. It is incredibly dark though and at times has violent moments so check out TWs if needed. It’s like the Shadow of the Wind had a baby with something Taylor Jenkins Reid had written and then add in some passionate, sexual moments and boom. You have this epic creation!
March 22, 2023
This novel is truly an enigma. I cannot for the life of me settle on a genre to classify this as. There are certainly aspects of horror, fantasy, mystery, erotica, and thriller throughout, but somehow none of those descriptors (together or separately) manages to encapsulate the energy of this story.
First of all, the audio narrator Carol Monda, does a fantastic job with this. She has a distinctive, rich-toned voice that is borderline raspy and very much gave Lauren Bacall/Kathleen Turner energy. This might not work for everyone, but I loved it and it worked so well with the character of Lily.
I'm a little bit biased toward books about books, but there was something about this story that I found so unique. There is a realness and a frankness to it that is wholly refreshing.
What really had me hooked from the beginning was Lily's description of her relationship with her husband Abel. They had the perfect love story. Her an author, him a professor: both creatives. Imagine a love that is easy and unconditional. One that burns brighter with time- that doesn’t grow stagnant- that doesn’t ask one or both to become less of themselves or stop growing. That is what they had. And then Abel is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Enter reality.
Imagine you felt so lucky that you found that kind of love and then out of nowhere, you lost it all. That is where this story begins, and the basis for everything that follows.
Gran does a great job with the characters in this story, especially Lily, who I felt deeply connected to as a reader. The pacing toward the middle could have been a little quicker, but overall I have very few complaints. What an original idea for a novel!
Much respect, indeed.
First of all, the audio narrator Carol Monda, does a fantastic job with this. She has a distinctive, rich-toned voice that is borderline raspy and very much gave Lauren Bacall/Kathleen Turner energy. This might not work for everyone, but I loved it and it worked so well with the character of Lily.
I'm a little bit biased toward books about books, but there was something about this story that I found so unique. There is a realness and a frankness to it that is wholly refreshing.
What really had me hooked from the beginning was Lily's description of her relationship with her husband Abel. They had the perfect love story. Her an author, him a professor: both creatives. Imagine a love that is easy and unconditional. One that burns brighter with time- that doesn’t grow stagnant- that doesn’t ask one or both to become less of themselves or stop growing. That is what they had. And then Abel is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Enter reality.
Imagine you felt so lucky that you found that kind of love and then out of nowhere, you lost it all. That is where this story begins, and the basis for everything that follows.
Gran does a great job with the characters in this story, especially Lily, who I felt deeply connected to as a reader. The pacing toward the middle could have been a little quicker, but overall I have very few complaints. What an original idea for a novel!
Much respect, indeed.
March 28, 2023
Don't let the fact that it took me....nearly a year to finish this book fool you. I absolutely loved it. This was twisty and nasty in the best possible ways, and it really does not compare to any else that I have ever read.
April 10, 2023
I wish I had known it had this particular content that's triggering for me. So, I'm gonna add it in the spoilers for anyone. That had no influence on the rating however🥲 I was bored to death.
Trigger warning for Dementia
Trigger warning for Dementia
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 24, 2024
Well well well.
Rolling around in copious human fluids, adultery and murder and your husband surprises you by being an undeserving POS. WHO’D OF GUESSED???
Rolling around in copious human fluids, adultery and murder and your husband surprises you by being an undeserving POS. WHO’D OF GUESSED???
July 26, 2024
The Book of Sex Magick
Review of the Dreamland Books paperback edition (February 8, 2022) released simultaneously with the eBook and in advance of the Audiobook edition (April 26, 2022). UK release by Faber & Faber (November 2022).
'Books about books' is my favourite genre-crossing sub-genre. I'll read non-fiction literary criticism, analyses of authors and their works, documentaries about libraries & books, biographies of books, top listings of books to read (i.e. 1,000 Best, etc.). I'll read fictional fantasies of imaginary books, historical fictions about real-life books, searches for rare books, searches for lost books and yes, even erotic fiction about cursed sex magick books.
I came across Sara Gran's The Book of the Most Precious Substance through one of the always entertaining and informative author interviews organized by the Poisoned Pen Bookstore on their YouTube channel. I was also interested to learn that it was the debut work of the author's own self-publishing venture Dreamland Books, having previously published her work with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Harper, etc. I love supporting independent and/or small press publishers and bookstores in general.
Our protagonist is Lily Albrecht, a former author known for one breakthrough novel, who now works as a rare book dealer in order to support herself and her husband who was struck with early onset dementia and requires constant care. Lily is put on the trail of tracking down the title book, an infamous occult rarity from the early 17th century, of which perhaps only 6 handwritten copies ever existed. Various rich and powerful individuals have owned or are seeking the book and will perhaps pay $Millions to own it.
Lily's quest causes her to ally with Lucas, another rare book buyer/seller and their journey takes them from from New York City to New Orleans to Los Angeles to London to Munich and to Paris. At each stop they are finding someone who once owned or once saw a copy of the book. One has only a partial copy, one has a likely forgery, but someone somewhere must have a complete authentic copy for their mission to succeed. To throw even more mystery into the mix, some of the searchers are murdered along the journey.
During the search, Lily and Lucas become quite bewitched and obsessed by the idea of the book and the power that it apparently will grant if one is able to complete its rituals which involve increasingly frenzied sex acts generating various bodily fluids (modesty prevents me from going into further details on those points). There is an early revelation about the final stages of the rituals which will allow some readers to guess the ending of the book, which I was also happy to have confirmed, as flattery of the reader by the author is always a winning formula as far as I'm concerned.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Book of the Most Precious Substance with its varied cast of book and/or sex obsessed characters. Sara Gran did an excellent job of combining the quest genre with the cursed book genre with murder and betrayal lurking along the way.
Trivia and Links
Reading The Book of the Most Precious Substance reminded me of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's The Club Dumas (1998), translated from the Spanish language original El club Dumas (1993), which has a slightly similar plot, i.e. a quest for a cursed book. The latter made for an unfortunately terrible movie The Ninth Gate (1999) with Johnny Depp, which I hope is not the fate of Sara Gran's novel.
Review of the Dreamland Books paperback edition (February 8, 2022) released simultaneously with the eBook and in advance of the Audiobook edition (April 26, 2022). UK release by Faber & Faber (November 2022).
'Books about books' is my favourite genre-crossing sub-genre. I'll read non-fiction literary criticism, analyses of authors and their works, documentaries about libraries & books, biographies of books, top listings of books to read (i.e. 1,000 Best, etc.). I'll read fictional fantasies of imaginary books, historical fictions about real-life books, searches for rare books, searches for lost books and yes, even erotic fiction about cursed sex magick books.
I came across Sara Gran's The Book of the Most Precious Substance through one of the always entertaining and informative author interviews organized by the Poisoned Pen Bookstore on their YouTube channel. I was also interested to learn that it was the debut work of the author's own self-publishing venture Dreamland Books, having previously published her work with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Harper, etc. I love supporting independent and/or small press publishers and bookstores in general.
Our protagonist is Lily Albrecht, a former author known for one breakthrough novel, who now works as a rare book dealer in order to support herself and her husband who was struck with early onset dementia and requires constant care. Lily is put on the trail of tracking down the title book, an infamous occult rarity from the early 17th century, of which perhaps only 6 handwritten copies ever existed. Various rich and powerful individuals have owned or are seeking the book and will perhaps pay $Millions to own it.
Lily's quest causes her to ally with Lucas, another rare book buyer/seller and their journey takes them from from New York City to New Orleans to Los Angeles to London to Munich and to Paris. At each stop they are finding someone who once owned or once saw a copy of the book. One has only a partial copy, one has a likely forgery, but someone somewhere must have a complete authentic copy for their mission to succeed. To throw even more mystery into the mix, some of the searchers are murdered along the journey.
During the search, Lily and Lucas become quite bewitched and obsessed by the idea of the book and the power that it apparently will grant if one is able to complete its rituals which involve increasingly frenzied sex acts generating various bodily fluids (modesty prevents me from going into further details on those points). There is an early revelation about the final stages of the rituals which will allow some readers to guess the ending of the book, which I was also happy to have confirmed, as flattery of the reader by the author is always a winning formula as far as I'm concerned.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Book of the Most Precious Substance with its varied cast of book and/or sex obsessed characters. Sara Gran did an excellent job of combining the quest genre with the cursed book genre with murder and betrayal lurking along the way.
Trivia and Links
Reading The Book of the Most Precious Substance reminded me of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's The Club Dumas (1998), translated from the Spanish language original El club Dumas (1993), which has a slightly similar plot, i.e. a quest for a cursed book. The latter made for an unfortunately terrible movie The Ninth Gate (1999) with Johnny Depp, which I hope is not the fate of Sara Gran's novel.
February 12, 2022
This is the hot and spooky tale of booksellers Lily and Lucas searching for a sex magic book that’s also evil, and it’s poignant and sexy until the denouement that Lily alludes to darkly several times occurs and that was a bit of a fizzle for me. Nothing happens that's as pat as the magazine quiz in Come Closer, which I will apparently never get over, but I disliked the convenience of one random, easily evaded incident in LA leading to the catalyst for Lucas’s, and thus Lily’s actions; also, I’ve been reading too much horror lately maybe, but with all of the fraught hints Lily drops about not realizing that the book was driving her actions until it was too late, I was expecting an ending much more horrible than - which is not a bad ending in and of itself, it’s actually pretty apropos for the whole vibe of the book, it just wasn’t wicked enough for me, I guess. But this was mainly titillating and sad and kind of chilling up until the end, and may you find as much simple joy as I did in the fact that the Precious Substance over which such fuss is made:
“I’d read that Crowley said magic was “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.” That took a clear vision (will) and the means to execute it (power). It seemed obvious to me now that you could get that power from ritual, from herbs and minerals, from charms, you could steal it from others - or you could find it in yourself. Likewise with will - it could come from anywhere, but the best, most genuine will was deep inside you. And releasing the Precious Substance was like breaking a wall around the will . . . ”
is vaginal ejaculate, and the cover becomes instantly more clever once that dominatrix finds Lily's G spot. Breaking a wall around the will, indeed.
“I’d read that Crowley said magic was “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.” That took a clear vision (will) and the means to execute it (power). It seemed obvious to me now that you could get that power from ritual, from herbs and minerals, from charms, you could steal it from others - or you could find it in yourself. Likewise with will - it could come from anywhere, but the best, most genuine will was deep inside you. And releasing the Precious Substance was like breaking a wall around the will . . . ”
is vaginal ejaculate, and the cover becomes instantly more clever once that dominatrix finds Lily's G spot. Breaking a wall around the will, indeed.
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