Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Abarat: The First Book of Hours | 2002 | Clive Barker | Buy |
| 2 | Days of Magic, Nights of War | 2004 | Clive Barker | Buy |
| 3 | Absolute Midnight | 2011 | Clive Barker | Buy |
The Abarat series is Clive Barker’s fantasy epic for young adult readers, following sixteen-year-old Candy Quackenbush who escapes her dreary Minnesota hometown and discovers an archipelago of twenty-five islands where each island exists in a different hour of the day. Barker began developing Abarat in the 1990s, creating hundreds of oil paintings of the world before writing the prose.
The series combines Barker’s signature dark imagination with a sense of wonder aimed at younger readers. Candy travels across the archipelago, encounters magical beings both friendly and dangerous, and gradually uncovers her own mysterious connection to this realm. The villain Mater Motley, a creature made of patchwork and souls, provides a threat that grows across the series.
Barker has described Abarat as his most personal work, inspired partly by memories of childhood escapism. The lavish illustrations set the series apart from typical fantasy novels and make each book as much an art object as a story. While the fourth and final volume has been announced, Barker’s health issues have delayed its completion.