A New York Times Best Seller
An Indiebound Best Seller
A Kids' Next Top Ten Book
A Summer/Fall 2014 Indies Introduce New Voices SelectionA Junior Library Guild Selection
One of Publishers Weekly’s Best Summer Reads

“Not since Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass have I seen such an original and compelling world built inside a book.”—Megan Whalen Turner, New York Times best-selling author of A Conspiracy of Kings

She has only seen the world through maps. She had no idea they were so dangerous.

Boston, 1891. Sophia Tims comes from a family of explorers and cartologers who, for generations, have been traveling and mapping the New World—a world changed by the Great Disruption of 1799, when all the continents were flung into different time periods. Eight years ago, her parents left her with her uncle Shadrack, the foremost cartologer in Boston, and went on an urgent mission. They never returned. Life with her brilliant, absent-minded, adored uncle has taught Sophia to take care of herself.

Then Shadrack is kidnapped. And Sophia, who has rarely been outside of Boston, is the only one who can search for him. Together with Theo, a refugee from the West, she travels over rough terrain and uncharted ocean, encounters pirates and traders, and relies on a combination of Shadrack’s maps, common sense, and her own slantwise powers of observation. But even as Sophia and Theo try to save Shadrack’s life, they are in danger of losing their own.

The Glass Sentence plunges readers into a time and place they will not want to leave, and introduces them to a heroine and hero they will take to their hearts. It is a remarkable debut.

“I think The Glass Sentence is absolutely marvelous. It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time. The world-building is so convincing, the plot so fast-moving and often surprising, and the ideas behind the novel so completely original. I love this book.”—Nancy Farmer, National Book Award-winning author of The House of the Scorpion

“I loved it! So imaginative!”—Nancy Pearl

“An exuberantly imagined cascade of unexplored worlds, inscribed in prose and detail as exquisite as the ... maps young Sophia uses to navigate such unpredictable landscapes. A book like a pirate's treasure hoard for map lovers like me."—Elizabeth Wein, New York Times best-selling author of Code Name Verity

“Brilliant in concept, breathtaking in scale and stellar in its worldbuilding; this is a world never before seen in fiction . . . Wholly original and marvelous beyond compare.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“A thrilling, time-bending debut . . . It’s a cracking adventure, and Grove bolsters the action with commentary on xenophobia and government for hire, as well as a fascinating system of map magic.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

S. E. Grove