“The Book of Love.” By Kelly Link. New York: Random House, 2024. 640 pages. $31 (Hardcover)

I was thrilled to hear one of my favorite short story writers (and certified MacArthur genius) Kelly Link was publishing her first novel. But what if the length undid all the pleasures of her work?

I’m happy to report that “The Book of Love” is as fun, complex and lovely as any short story Link has written. If you’re already a fan, her novel will live up to your expectations. And if you haven’t read her work yet, the novel is a great starting point.

Link’s fiction can be hard to label. Much of her work is grounded in realism, but it’s considered speculative because it contains varying amounts of fantasy, fairy tale, fable and/or horror. Similarly, “The Book of Love” takes place in a world that is simultaneously completely recognizable and fantastically impossible.

Set in a present-day coastal town in Massachusetts, the novel opens with 19-year-old Susannah grieving her younger sister, Laura, who disappeared almost a year ago along with two of Susannah’s closest friends.

But, in the next chapter, Laura and the friends – along with a mysterious fourth person – reappear, having escaped death by slipping through an unexpected doorway into their high school music room where they discover their mild-mannered music teacher, Mr. Anabin, is, in fact, magical.

Anabin works a spell that explains away the teens’ absence. He also introduces them to a second magical person, the sinister Bogomil. Laura and the others don’t remember how they died, but Anabin and Bogomil make clear that their newly regained lives depend on their discovering what happened. They also need to learn how to perform magic. Finally, they can’t tell anyone the truth of their situation, especially Susannah, though it’s soon clear that she may figure things out on her own.

What follows is a story about a magical quest – but also a story about navigating the late teens when childhood has ended but it’s not clear who you’re now supposed to be. It’s a story about attempting to outwit ultra-powerful magical beings – but it’s also a story about the finding and losing and finding again of love, in all its forms.

One of those forms is sisterly love. Susannah and Laura variously baffle, loathe and need each other. Susannah, a talented but directionless screw-up, is “a new bruise” who “(grows) angry too easily and for no good reason.” She works low-paying jobs in her hometown and consistently fails to make a plan about what to do with her life.

Laura, in contrast, is a high-achiever who can’t wait to leave home. She believes she’s destined to “be a star. It seemed proof of this, somehow, that she had come back from the dead. She would make it mean something.” But is she willing to leave her sister behind?

There’s also plenty of romantic love and complications. Susannah is in denial of her feelings for Daniel (one of her friends who’s come back from the dead) despite their history of sporadically sleeping with each other. Daniel, meanwhile, suspects he may have died because on the fateful night, he broke up with Susannah for good, even though he loves her.

The other resurrected friend, Mo, is a gay, out, 16-year-old composer who yearns for someone to connect with. In the middle of his magical predicament, he finds someone who may be the love of his life – or else is out to betray him.

Link populates the novel with a dozen other memorable characters with complex backstories, competing motivations, and notable powers, both magical and non-magical. She also weaves in the idea of music as a force as strong as anything a goddess could dream up.

And her prose is as strong as ever. Consider this description of a magical event: “The roof of the porch, the railings, the exterior walls of the house, most bikes in the driveway, every blade of grass in the Hands’ yard, were carpeted with moths. There must have been thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands, in diameter no bigger than a nickel. They were dusty white until their wings lifted, the undersides velvet blue.”

All this, and a racially diverse cast, the lure of romance novels, humans becoming foxes and tigers and seagulls, doorways to magical realms, and the most delicious doughnuts ever described in print.

– Reviewed by Erika Solberg, freelance writer, book coach and ghostwriter, Bowling Green.