Editorial Content for The Library at Hellebore

If Hogwarts had depicted monsters instead of wizards in training, or Stephen King’s THE INSTITUTE was a tad more evil and violent, you might have some idea of what Cassandra Khaw has in store for you in THE LIBRARY AT HELLEBORE.

The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is a special school for young people with unique gifts who are also dangerously powerful --- dangerous to the point where many have regarded them as monsters. Most of them relish this label and recognize that Hellebore is for “the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.” This is all news to Alessa Li, who wakes up at Hellebore after being kidnapped and shanghaied there against her will and without her knowledge.

"In a brief period of time, Cassandra Khaw has shown that they are a writer of enormous imagination with the ability to create scenes of abject horror paired with beautiful, creative writing that is the product of a fertile, artistic mind."

The structure of the novel includes chapters that are set BEFORE and those that revolve around DAY ONE, TWO and THREE of the final showdown between a handful of students fighting for their very existence inside the Hellebore Library, where they are hiding from the monstrous administration that wishes to consume them.

Alessa is our narrator, and she recites the action as if she were speaking to another student at Hellebore who is following along with her adventure. All of this is appropriately captured in her journal. A few people whom Alessa has befriended go through the main ordeals with her. Once they figure out that there will be no actual graduation and that they are there simply for the faculty’s literal consumption, the situation turns nightmarish.

Alessa’s crew, along with a few other students, find themselves locked inside the Hellebore Library in an effort to stave off their inevitable elimination. It might seem like a good temporary idea, but then they learn that the library itself is very much alive and is capable of consuming all of them should they awaken or anger it. The library is said to contain every book ever written, as well as those not yet penned. Each of these volumes could behave as part of the entity holding them and become deadly weapons.

A young man named Adam, who is not part of Alessa’s group, attempts to take on a leadership role. It doesn’t help that no one trusts him, and despite his good looks, he will use his special powers for evil purposes. Alessa is terrified, and she also is deeply weirded out that the library bears an uncanny resemblance to the one at Trinity College in Dublin.

Alliances will be made, and students will turn on each other all in the name of survival. The fact that each of them possesses abilities that are unknown until they are revealed makes for some mind-bending moments of dark fantasy. Before the three-day standoff is over, Alessa will find herself to be a young lady who was once the confused outsider and is now the potential savior in a horrific scenario that is very much the stuff of nightmares.

In a brief period of time, Cassandra Khaw has shown that they are a writer of enormous imagination with the ability to create scenes of abject horror paired with beautiful, creative writing that is the product of a fertile, artistic mind. THE LIBRARY AT HELLEBORE is quite a wild ride!