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Name: The Dark Vault: Unlock the Archive : Schwab, V. E: Amazon.com.au: Books
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Rating: 4.3 (986 reviews)

Victoria Schwab

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The Dark Vault: Unlock the Archive Paperback – 1 November 2018

by V. E Schwab (Author)

986 ratings

Book 1 of 2: Archived

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Age range 12 to 17

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.

Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Mackenzie Bishop's grandfather first brought her here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now her grandfather is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was: a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.

Follow Mackenzie as she explores the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking, through these two timeless novels, now bound together in this thrilling collection. With stunning prose and a captivating mixture of action, romance, and horror, The Dark Vault delves into a richly imagined world where no choice is easy and love and loss feel like two sides of the same coin.

Product description

About the Author

V.E. Schwab is the No.1 New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including This Savage Song and the Darker Shade of Magic series, whose first book was described as "a classic work of fantasy" by Deborah Harkness. It was one of Waterstones' Best Fantasy Books of 2015, The Guardian's Best Science Fiction novels, and a Telegraph choice. The Independent has called her "The natural successor to Diana Wynne Jones."

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Titan Books
Publication date ‏ : ‎ 1 November 2018
Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 704 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1789090857
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1789090857
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 510 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13 x 3.58 x 19.81 cm
Book 1 of 2 ‏ : ‎ Archived
Best Sellers Rank: 123,475 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 287 in Magical Realist Fiction for Young Adults
- 913 in Sword & Sorcery Fantasy for Young Adults
- 1,269 in Magical Realism
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986 ratings

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Victoria Schwab

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Victoria "V.E." Schwab is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen books, including the acclaimed Shades of Magic series, This Savage Song, Our Dark Duet, City of Ghosts and Vicious. Her work has received critical acclaim, has been featured in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Washington Post, and more, has been translated into more than a dozen languages, and has been optioned for television and film. When she's not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she lives in Nashville and is usually tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.

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Janelle Dazzlepants
For fans of The Adjustment Bureau
Reviewed in Australia on 25 October 2018

Put simply: Victoria Schwab NAILED this.

Schwab’s worldbuilding and mythology is incredible, she creates concepts and universes that shouldn’t work and yet absolutely suck you in. She has such an immersive, atmospheric quality to her writing that made me feel as if I were physically travelling The Narrows with our protagonist, and once the mystery started to ramp up it was unputdownable. I am so glad I picked this up, and yet so emo to learn that the series may never be completed!

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Wandering Witch
Incredible!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 June 2014
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This was one of those few books I knew I’d love from the cover and blurb alone. Libraries? Dead people shelved like books? I had a feeling this was going to be right up my alley, and happily, I was right!

The premise for the books is the idea that we are made up of our experiences and memories, and that these survive our deaths in the form of Histories, stored in a vast library known as the Archive. Mackenzie is a Keeper, meaning that it’s her responsibility to find escaped Histories and return them to their rightful place. After the loss of her little brother, her parents move to an old hotel, a place with a history someone wants to cover up. Mackenzie is forced to reassess everything she thinks she knows as she learns that something is wrong in the Archived, and it’s somehow tied in to her new home’s sinister history.

This book drew me in from the first page and refused to let me go. I loved Mackenzie, who is a fantastically relatable protagonist – both tough, ruthless keeper and lost teenage girl desperate to cling to the memory of her little brother. The Archived explores an array of themes surrounding loss and memory, life and death, through its unique concept of the Histories. They’re like ghosts, in a way. I wouldn’t call this a horror story, but the idea of a hotel with a hidden history and the shadow of a murder in the bedroom send a delightful shiver down the spine.

I’ve read so many books and seen so many films which have a great concept and poor execution. Thankfully, The Archived isn’t one of them. The gripping story and lyrical writing more than match the concept, which is no easy task! I’m usually a fast reader, but this is one of those books you want to slow down and savour because of the beauty of the writing. At the same time, the plot held me hooked until the end.

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C.J. Listro
An exciting new YA in the tradition of Neil Gaiman
Reviewed in the United States on 20 April 2013
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It took me a few tics to get into The Archived; but by page 30 or so, I was trapped. In the realm of young adult urban fantasy, it offers something unique (dead people, "Histories", shelved like books and the Keepers who hunt the escapees) embedded in something familiar (an old-timey ghost mystery), with a twist of romance that defies the insta-love trend. And is only a twist, because our focus is not on some teenage love drama, but the badassery of Mackenzie. I connected with her immediately and stayed deeply invested in her to the end, even when she was being horrendously stupid. Because she was also clever, resourceful, compassionate to a fault. And empowering. She drove the plot, from choosing to confide in Wesley and the Librarians (band name?) to investigating traces of an old murder to allowing the mysterious Owen a free pass from getting shelved. Her mistakes had huge consequences, but at least they were her mistakes and not something simply happening to her. I was breathless watching the mysteries fit together and unravel, sullen on the last page because I had to have more, and excited because Mac ultimately saves herself.

plot . 5/5
The start is enigmatic. I felt thrown into a story midway through, knowing there were details I had yet to find. It made it take a minute to latch onto the plot, but in the end it worked for me. There was no lag time. From the start, I was running through the Narrows with Mackenzie hunting Histories. But the plot goes much deeper than that. There are layers that seem set in the Archive world, layers only in the real world, but more and more the story becomes mixed up between the two. It's a clear demonstration of how impossible it is for Mac to keep her two lives separate, and also a thrilling mystery that gets twistier every page-turn. We have the increasingly violent Histories, Mac's dead brother and her family's grief, the walls that speak of old murders, the mysterious friendly History Owen, the new Keeper Wesley, the enigmatic Librarians. I also appreciated the very unconventional play on a love triangle that's not really a love triangle. As I read, things that seemed unconnected became connected and everything built towards a conclusion that was partly shocking and partly satisfyingly expected. And it left me wanting the sequel right now.

concept . 5/5
So there's young adult urban fantasy, and then there's The Archived. No vampire, fairies, demons, or other beasties here. Schwab has concocted a fascinating and entirely new other-world. You can see the inspiration from a mausoleum, but the Archive is much more than that. It's full of people. Histories, like ghosts but not a ghost you've ever encountered before. Keepers who coax and coerce them back to their shelves when they escape into the space between worlds. Crew who hunt down the violent ones who reach the real world. My absolute favorite part was the ability of the Keepers to read. Just by touch, they can absorb the impressions in everything--stories imprinted into objects and walls by the people who once touched them, stories in the heads of living people jumbled and disorienting. Mac's reading ability is not only cool as hell, but it features highly in the plot. It's dangerous and seductive, and it causes just as much trouble as it provides help.

characters . 5/5
Schwab has a particularly strong cast of characters, a cut above the usual young adult set. Mackenzie is a little younger than a lot of young adult fantasy heroines, so there's less brooding over bad boys and more being a teenager. Sort of. She's mature to start with and her job, and the untimely death of her little brother, have made her an elder in a kid's body. You can see it in the way that she sees through her mother's "light bulb" cheerfulness and her father's silence, ways they try to hide their grief from her. The way she's attracted to Wesley but keeps her distance, because she knows the cost of getting too close. But she's vulnerable too. She breaks the rules to sit at her brother's shelf, and her lenience towards an unusual History becomes crucial and damaging. But that vulnerability doesn't stop her from fighting back. In the end, she kicks ass all on her own. No insta-love backup needed. And Wesley? If he were older, I'd marry him. He's the perfect blend of snarky and perceptive, a little foolhardy but with a surprising poetic soul. I won't gush too much over the rest of the cast, but even those with less screen time, like Roland and Mac's parents, feel fully developed. Then there's Da. We see him only in memories, and yet I felt like he was one of the strongest portrayals in the book.

style . 5/5
There were so many pages I wanted to dog-ear. I'm a broken record when it comes to whining about the quality of writing in young adult fiction, urban fantasy or otherwise. With The Archived, there's nothing to whine about--except maybe that Schwab can't possibly write enough books to satisfy my craving for her prose. It's a bit Gaimanesque. Not as snarkily playful, but there's a magical quality to even the mundane scenes that makes you feel excited. And it can go magical to mournful in an instant, without feeling forced. The emotion is deep, the deeper meanings are there without beating you over the head, and the descriptions are downright gorgeous. I could picture every scene but still let my imagination fill in the blanks. It's a rare gift and Schwab's got it.

mechanics . 5/5
The interweaving of memories and the current narrative is an increasing trend in young adult fantasy (Everneath and Everbound do it quite well) and no less effective here. I was able to jump right into the action without the "WTF is going on?" problem. But it does more. Schwab uses the memories with Da to support what's going on in the present, creating important comparisons and clarifications and dropping clues. It makes for a much richer narrative than if she had presented the background all at once. It also factors into The Archived's rather brilliant foreshadowing.

take home message
A masterful urban fantasy that plays with the ideas of life, love, and death in the context of a thrilling plot and endearing characters.

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Anonimous
Loved it! (recensione in Inglese.Se intendi comprare il libro in limgua originale, allora dovresti poterla leggere!)
Reviewed in Italy on 24 February 2013
Verified Purchase
I've had this book in my wish list for a month. And then I gave up and bought it, seeing as so many good reviews kept blossoming. That was a double-edged knife, though: so many good reviews meant if I didn't like the book, it would be a double disappointment.
Instead, I loved The Archived.
Schwab constructed an amazingly imaginative world, where modern and fantasy mingle, tinted in dark, shiny shades. A book worth Neil Gaiman's hug, a book which can compete with Garth Nyx's Old Kingdom's trilogy. Well written, enticing, it kept me glued for 24 hours, and even when I couldn't read, the world of the Outer, the Narrows and the Archive stayed with me, like I was roaming it too along with Mac.
The characters are believable, well constructed. The writing is fast-paced, keeps you reading despite yourself.
The only criticism I could move -If I can even call it that- is that the book is too <i>short</i>, the plot too fast. It doesn't last long enough and makes you want more.
Now, while there seem to be room for a second book, the ending does conclude the narrative plot of the book. I wouldn't mind reading a second book, meeting Mac and Wes again, going back to the Archive to chat with Roland. But Schwab closed all the open questions, and she would have to be very, very good at opening new ones that were believable and as enticing, and still make the book gripping. Not an easy task.
Anyway, this has been one of the best books I've read in years, and I haven't been so glued to one since I read The Hunger Games trilogy last year.
A thousand times recommended!

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August 🪐
A gripping coming of age tale with the fusion of supernatural thriller
Reviewed in India on 11 October 2020
Verified Purchase
On the first novel :–
The story is a brilliant combination of supernatural stuff & thriller. We get to read the story from Mackenzie's point of view so, there's no other character's POV. We get to meet some amazing side characters. I liked the writing style very much & the concept of the story is brilliant. We also get to see how different people grieve in their own different ways as Mackenzie's family does just after loosing their 10years old son. This story is compact with thrill, adventure, some hand to hand combat, importance of family & friendship.
Sometimes the plot felt kinda predictable but nonetheless it's a very gripping story.
So, if you're a fan of supernatural thrillers & mysteries you should definitely check this book out.

On the second novel :–
This book was the perfect ending to the story, totally satisfying. Like a coming of age tale with the fusion of paranormal fiction. Victoria Schwab beautifully portrayed Mackenzie's character. What it likes to handle the stress of loosing your dear ones & living a second life full of secrets & dangerous tasks while also dreaming about a normal life that you could probably have. It feels totally real. We also get to see how nice it feels to let someone in, to share our troubles with them who understands & help us to get through it from Mackenzie & Wesley's relationship.

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August 🪐

A gripping coming of age tale with the fusion of supernatural thriller

Reviewed in India on 11 October 2020
On the first novel :–
The story is a brilliant combination of supernatural stuff & thriller. We get to read the story from Mackenzie's point of view so, there's no other character's POV. We get to meet some amazing side characters. I liked the writing style very much & the concept of the story is brilliant. We also get to see how different people grieve in their own different ways as Mackenzie's family does just after loosing their 10years old son. This story is compact with thrill, adventure, some hand to hand combat, importance of family & friendship.
Sometimes the plot felt kinda predictable but nonetheless it's a very gripping story.
So, if you're a fan of supernatural thrillers & mysteries you should definitely check this book out.

On the second novel :–
This book was the perfect ending to the story, totally satisfying. Like a coming of age tale with the fusion of paranormal fiction. Victoria Schwab beautifully portrayed Mackenzie's character. What it likes to handle the stress of loosing your dear ones & living a second life full of secrets & dangerous tasks while also dreaming about a normal life that you could probably have. It feels totally real. We also get to see how nice it feels to let someone in, to share our troubles with them who understands & help us to get through it from Mackenzie & Wesley's relationship.

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chantal
Great YA Novel
Reviewed in Canada on 15 March 2014
Verified Purchase
Very seldom do I find myself wanting to read a good paranormal story. However, after reading many great reviews about The Archived by Victoria Schwab, I decided to give it a go. It took me about 2 chapters to really get into the story. After that, I couldn’t put it down.

Mackenzie Bishop is the main character of this novel. She is a Keeper. This means that it is her duty to return any Histories (dead people) that may have escaped the Archives (A library of the dead). We follow her in her adventures to this paranormal world and back, while trying to figure out who should be trusted with Mac’s secrets.

I enjoyed the story enough but what captivated me was Victoria’s writing. Though this is a young adult novel, I thought the writing style was sophisticated and had a lovely flow to it. Her words are almost poetry-like. Something I was definitely not expecting from a YA, paranormal novel.

All in all, I believe The Archived is a great read for anyone. Teen, adult, or senior, if you have only a slight interest in the paranormal and can appreciate a well-written, quick read, I would suggest you pick this novel up.

I can hardly wait to get my hands on The Unbound…

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