The Archivist


Young Adult - Fantasy - Urban
Kindle Edition
Reviewed on 10/04/2022
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

V S Nelson writes unconventional middle grade and young adult fantasy, science fiction and supernatural stories for readers who enjoy something a little strange.

Their first story was The Keeper of Portals, a middle grade fantasy/sci-fi with plenty of portal jumping and time slipping. Their second story, The Archivist, is a young adult dark fantasy all about death and what happens after.

V S Nelson loves big ideas, fantastical concepts and stories that unsettle the reader and set them thinking about something new.

V S Nelson lives in Winchester with their other half, two children and three cats. When not writing, they're either working as a theoretical physicist or building Lego.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Melanie Kennedy for Readers' Favorite

The Archivist by V S Nelson is a remarkable story about death. The Archivist is a human being like everyone else, but with a special ability to save someone’s essence before they are sucked into the Aether, the nothingness that consumes everyone in the end. Along comes Sun-young Kang who manages to trick the Archivist into helping her. Luckily the Archivist is quick to forgive, and soon the pair finds themselves thrust into a conspiracy as they need to solve an alarming series of schoolgirl suicides. Their investigation leads them to another Archivist, who has long been hiding in the shadows. Nelson writes an engrossing tale of love and loss in this hauntingly beautiful tale.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Archivist. I thought it had a brilliant premise and the characters and scenes were so well written that I couldn’t put the book down once I had started reading it. The book is a marvelous story about death, but more importantly love, life and hope. V S Nelson has an incredible technique in writing a whole novel about death that never once makes it distressing. Nelson knows that even though it’s a heartbreaking facet of life, there is still hope for the people left behind. I especially enjoyed the fast-paced and witty conversations between Sun-young and the Archivist. It complemented their characters, kept the story interesting, and kept me invested in their eventual outcome. Some sensitive subjects such as suicide are a pivotal part of the story, but they are dealt with respectfully. It is rare to find a book that can capture one’s imagination and attention like this book does.