Meggie loves books. So does her father, Mo, a bookbinder, although he's never read aloud to her since her mother mysteriously disappeared. They live quietly until the night a stranger arrives with a warning. The next day, Mo starts packing but won't tell Meggie why. They must go into hiding. But from what? From whom? Soon, Mo's secret is revealed. He has the amazing ability to breathe life into stories, to make characters come alive. Years ago, he accidentally released a merciless villain from a book called Inkheart. And now, this hateful criminal is after Mo and his extraordinary gift. Meggie is hurled into the adventure of a lifetime, where the imaginary has become real. It's up to her to find a way to alter the course of the story that holds them all in its power.
Although a year has passed, not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of the extraordinary events of Inkheart, and the story whose characters strode out of the pages and changed her life for ever. But for Dustfinger, the fire-eater, torn from his world of words, the need to return has become desperate. When he finds a crooked storyteller with the magical ability to read him back, he sets in motion a dangerous reversal that sees the characters of Inkheart transported to a charmed Inkworld, about to be fought over by rival rebels and princes.
Life in the Inkworld has been far from easy since the extraordinary events of Inkspell, when the story of Inkheart magically drew Meggie, Mo and Dustfinger back into its pages. With Dustfinger dead, and the evil Adderhead now in control, the story in which they are all caught has taken an unhappy turn. Even Elinor, left alone in the real world, believes her family to be lost—lost between the covers of a book. But as winter comes on there is reason to hope—if only Meggie and Mo can rewrite the wrongs of the past and make a dangerous pact with death.
