Prologue: The Lightning In Everything

When her father dies in a sudden bombing, Opal Hunt devotes herself to the task he left behind: finding the lost Library of Alexandria. Her quest takes her to the ruins in Alexandria, to the dens of pirates and spies, into the corrupt glittering streets of the Imperial City and beyond. As the journey unfolds, so do the secrets her father kept in his life: an affair with the Imperial Princess, a son exiled, and a throng of connections to an underworld with a tenuous circle of trust. This young adult novel blends dystopian fiction with ancient Roman influences in a fast-paced read that questions who should be the keepers of knowledge and asks how well we can ever know the people we love.