The book
Althea's story
A kidnapping in the night goes awry and Althea must find her own way to a library that doesn't hold books. No written words. Instead, the Library of Stroma radiates endless stories in colored glass.
Althea is sixteen, a Black girl from a world with two suns. One day in the Library she lives a whole life on Earth, with a marriage, three children and fifty years, and comes back in her sixteen-year-old body. Through it all she relies on integrity, logic, and determination as she navigates truth and fiction, fear and trust, and ultimately accepts her mission.
For readers of The Ten Thousand Doors of January and The Midnight Library. A one-weekend read in 26 short chapters.
“A colorful and thrilling journey, woven with compelling threads of the human experience—I was completely immersed!”
Free, by email
Your Library Card
A 19-page sample to read before 1 December: the map of the Library, chapters 1 and 2 with their pictures, five questions to talk over, and a small extra for anyone who likes to notice things.
For book clubs
Read it together
Twenty-six short chapters, one weekend, and a great deal to talk about: who taught you what to be afraid of, what a life is worth, and what you would do with a second one.
One page, ten questions, the ending ones under a spoiler line. Kat visits in person in Santa Fe, or on Zoom anywhere.
Meet Kat on launch day: a live reading on Instagram, the evening of 1 December.
The author
Kat Bernhardt
Born and raised in Fairbanks in the middle of Alaska, Kat Bernhardt writes, travels, guides historic tours, and perpetually seeks to learn from cultures, languages, and new perspectives. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, Kat sings jazz and choral music, acts in theater productions, works at the School for Advanced Research (SAR), and researches the life of her great grandmother: Santa Fe's Own Sun Painter Pansy Stockton.
Read more
Kat has written everything from articles about coal fires in India, archaeology in Guatemala, and commercial salmon fishing to lyric and prose poems to historical fiction to short stories to travel memoirs. Kat studied with the poet Robert Dana at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa and has a Master's Degree in Education.