'People will love the first volume of Philip Pullman's new trilogy with the same helpless vehemence that stole over them when The Golden Compass came out. And Malcolm will brave any danger, and make shocking sacrifices, to bring her safely through the storm. Lyra is the kind of person who draws people in like magnets. All are asking about the same thing: a girl-just a baby-named Lyra.

It began with La Belle Sauvage and continues with The Secret. When she asks Malcolm to keep his eyes open, he sees suspicious characters everywhere: the explorer Lord Asriel, clearly on the run enforcement agents from the Magisterium a gyptian named Coram with warnings just for Malcolm and a beautiful woman with an evil monkey for a daemon. The Book of Dust, Pullman’s eagerly anticipated return to the world of His Dark Materials, will also be a book in three parts. He finds a secret message inquiring about a dangerous substance called Dust-and the spy it was intended for finds him. Malcolm and his daemon, Asta, routinely overhear news and gossip, and the occasional scandal, but during a winter of unceasing rain, Malcolm catches wind of something new: intrigue. Malcolm's parents run an inn called the Trout, on the banks of the river Thames, and all of Oxford passes through its doors. And so perhaps it was inevitable that he would become a spy.

Malcolm Polstead is the kind of boy who notices everything but is not much noticed himself. Philip Pullman returns to the parallel world of his groundbreaking His Dark Materials series-soon to be an HBO original series starring Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, James McAvoy, and Lin-Manuel Miranda-to expand on the story of Lyra, 'one of fantasy's most indelible heroines' ( The New York Times Magazine). 'Too few things in our world are worth a seventeen-year wait: The Book of Dust is one of them.' - The Washington Post

Book of dust volume 1