THE BOOK OF LONGINGS as written by NAOMI NOVIK with a dash of spunk
Adult Historical Fiction - Fabulist - Upmarket
This is the story of the battle against oblivion. It begins with a girl, long ago.
Jerusalem, 978 BCE. Adira, Daughter of the Tribe of Judah, Princess of Israel, feels like a wildfire. She’s exhausted with her boring, sublunary sisters and her vicious horde of older brothers. She doesn’t know where she belongs. Then she collides with Dor, a grumpy, uptight scribe. Dor challenges everything she does, and yet—he’s a brilliant chronicler of their heritage. Adira begins scribal training with Dor and ignites one adventure after another with her ragtag crew. She unearths a forgotten scroll with mysterious threads woven into the ancestral tale. The scroll is stolen, and her nation is thrust into a brutal civil war, shattering Adira’s beliefs—nothing endures, loyalty is transient as dust.
This is Adira’s story: of searching for home, for hope, when you’re not sure you believe in goodness anymore. THE HISTORY OF STARLIGHT follows Adira’s journey from wayward royal to a woman who will battle for her tribe’s existence and for their textual legacy in a world bursting with rebellions and betrayals.
Though situated in a true historical landscape, STARLIGHT reads like fabulism, as my voice tends towards whimsical and some beliefs of the ancient world are now deemed magical, such as astrology, herbalism, and enchantments. It is a genre-busting, character-driven story with folklore, luscious world building, and a complicated network of tribal families. Though STARLIGHT asks questions of identity and community, of grief and loyalty, of truth and myth, fundamentally—it is a slow-burn, swoony love story.
Welcome to the mythic world of the ancients. Let's go on an adventure.
Querying. Draft Twenty. 135,500 words.