A novel by J.F. Penn
Map of Shadows
A map of skin etched in blood. A world under threat from the Borderlands.
When her estranged grandfather is murdered in Bath, Sienna Farren inherits his antique map shop, and with it the family gift: the ability to walk through maps.
Beneath Bath Abbey she finds the Ministry of Maps, the secret agency that holds the line against the Borderlands, the shadow realm where everything written off the world's maps ends up.
Her father, lost ten years ago, is alive over there, and his living skin is being carved into the Map of Shadows, a map with the power to redraw the border itself.
With an untried team of Mapwalkers and a Borderlander guide with his own bargain to keep, Sienna must cross over and bring her father home.
For readers of Shadow and Bone, Neverwhere and A Darker Shade of Magic.
Available in ebook, paperback, hardback, large print and audiobook. Buying direct supports the author most, and ships worldwide.
The research behind the book
The real map shop
The antique map shop between the Circus and the Royal Crescent that seeded the whole trilogy.
Learn more →The Mappa Mundi
Hereford Cathedral's medieval map of the world and its chained library: the book's gateway, rendered true.
The Circus and Stonehenge
Bath's grandest circle matches Stonehenge's circumference, crowned with Masonic acorns. Real city lore, used as the gate.
Learn more → Plague islandPoveglia
Venice's real quarantine island: plague pits, an abandoned asylum, and 'shroud eater' burials.
Learn more → UndergroundDerinkuyu
The real eighteen-storey underground city of Cappadocia, pushed over the border in the story.
Learn more →Phantom islands
The Isle of Demons and the other islands cartographers drew, then quietly erased.
Audiobook available direct from the author and on Audible, Apple, Kobo, Spotify and more.
