This was not what I expected, but I was hooked right from the beginning.

The story is original and very different from anything I've ever read, definitely in a good way. The characters feel real, and you really feel for the main character lily and her motivations for finding the book.

I absolutely loved this book – I already know it will be one of my favourites of the year. I've read and loved Sara Gran's books before, so it was no surprise that I enjoyed this one. It felt like a classic bibliomystery, like one of those 90s films where a hapless academic searches for a cursed book, but it also felt very modern, and feminist but not in a silly way. Also I don't think I've ever read a book with female ejaculation as a plot point before. And the ending is killer.

I’m a sucker for books about books and book collecting so this was right up my street. It was an emotional rollercoaster which veered from tragedy to comedy and back again without drawing breath. The central characters were well-drawn and complex, while the premise behind the mysterious book itself was most original. Highly recommended.

I devoured this.
The writing is very good, the story is wild and I loved every moment.
Thank you netgalley and publisher for my copy.

Play Blood,Sex,Magic by RHCP

I did not get what I expected from this story, and I could not be more thrilled about it!

A book I picked up on a whim is now in the running for my favourite of the year. I love stories that cannot be easily categorised and this one is a great example: fantasy, mystery, thriller, erotic romance, horror…
If those are the genres you enjoy, I would suggest going completely blind. This book will definitely keep you entertained and it might even shock you once or twice.

I didn't realize going in that this was a story of the search for a book on sex magic. It's listed as horror, but it's not. It's an erotic thriller.

I didn't find it particularly easy to read - it's a little too repetitive, and I didn't warm to any of the characters. I persevered through as a wanted to see how it all turned out in the end, but it really wasn't my cup of tea. I found the ending rather disappointing.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

for the life of me, I never thought I'd be enjoying erotic thriller but here we are.

First of all,
sorry for the late review. Lost all my devices, took me quite some time to recover my email and here we are:
only 3 of them exited, and it is rumoured that the book will grant any wish to someone who completes its five steps of sex magic. for Lily Albrecht, life has been difficult for her; her husband is in vegetative state, and she's in need of some cash. She looked for the book in hope of selling them, and hired Lucas Markson, another figure in the rare book world, to help her track down a copy of the book and to identify the mystery customer so that they can sell the book on for a profit.

However rare stuff brings out ugliness in people, and this case, people won't stop at murder. soon enough, Lily find herself in danger.

I was drawn by the title and cover on this book,. Once I started reading it was not what I was expecting at all. But I really enjoyed it. Very well written

Sex magick novel, can it be tracked down to change the course of lily's history with the power of the occult. This booksellers quest to find a 400 year book that may or may not exist awaits you where you'll be transported across the globe in rituals, blood and magick if you dare read. Entertaining and anything but mundane.
Thank you netgalley and publisher for arc copy.

Lily was a writer who hasn't written anything for a long time. She married Abe &looked forward to a happy life. However Abe became ill & is not unable to d anything for himself. Lily has become a bookseller known for sourcing rare books but money is tight. When she attends a book fair in New York she meets up with old friend Lucas & they hear of someone willing to pay a huge amount of money to buy a rare book. There were only ever five copies of 'Book of the Most Precious Substance' & it is thought only three now exist. It is a book about dark occult sex magic. Lily & Lucas set off on their quest to find it & using the information they glean about it, become involved in its magic (not the fairy story type either!)


I find this a really hard book to review. I wanted to read it because I loved the cover (bit daft really when I only read on my Kindle!) I didn't think too much of the implications of the title- maybe I should have! I did get fed up with the constant description of various meals in various places & kept wondering who was paying for this jaunt. However I also had to follow their quest to the end. Was it a satisfying ending? Be careful what you wish for! Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read this extraordinary book.

This book was more adventerous than I anticipated, and while I wasn't expecting the 'occult book' to be a book on sex magic, it made a great story. I didn't grow to love the characters, but I liked them well enough and they fit into the book's narrative smoothly. The ending was satisfying in the sense that as the story progresses you expect it to go wrong somehow, and it does, but it doesn't feel like a total tragedy of an ending, either. The writing style is straight forward and easy to follow, but what brings the appeal to this book is the rich and at times erotic atmosphere, exploring sensuality as much as the book dealer world. I wouldn't read this book again, but I'm grateful to Faber & Faber for adding it to my list of books read this year!

The Book of the Most Precious Substance is a hard one for me to review. This is a dark mystery about a woman who wants to acquire a book about sex magic that promises to fulfill any wish. This was a fun book and I enjoyed the extravagant travelling, the steamy scenes, the interesting characters, so full of life. It did feel a bit silly at times though, and some themes were underexplored so I am not sure I can see this becoming a favorite, but it surely was an entertaining, dark read!

Literary erotica is mostly a bit of an oxymoron but this book gives it a damn good try.

Lily is an acclaimed writer with a stellar career ahead of her and married to the love of her life. But perfect endings are for fairy tales.

Gran follows Lily’s attempts to rebuild her life, with unexpected twists, magic, eroticism and best of all, lots of books 📚 (and one in particular).

I mean who doesn’t love a quest novel?

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to Faber & Faber for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Book of the Most Precious Substance’ by Sara Gran.

Lily Albrecht had been a successful author; though she hasn’t been able to write since her husband has been incapacitated with a neurological disease. Now she works as a rare book dealer.

A book collector friend asks Lily if she has heard of The Book of the Most Precious Substance, a 17th century manual rumoured to be the most powerful occult book ever written. He knows of a buyer willing to pay a fortune for it and seeks Lily’s knowledge of the antiquarian market to track it down.

In turn, Lily teams up with Lucas, a librarian friend, and they embark on a whirlwind journey from New York to New Orleans to Munich to Paris, chasing the elusive text. Lily is intrigued by the powers that the book is said to confer if its rituals are completed. How far will she go to achieve her desires? Pretty far it seems.

The literary mystery premise of this novel definitely appealed to me and there were clear echoes of Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s ‘The Club Dumas’, filmed as ‘The Ninth Gate’.

However, the couple’s round of luxurious hotels, lavish meals, and bedroom antics became rather repetitive as they bounced around in search of the book’s current owner and sought to enact its sexual rites along the way with zero magical experience. The novel’s sex scenes and resultant substances were copious.

In general I found the occult aspects of the plot unconvincing. One character, who verged on parody, made a query of Lily that was so cringe worthy I just laughed. That’s not a response I expect when reading an occult thriller. While I don’t mind a little melodrama or Grand Guignol in occult novels or films, this felt off key.

Overall, I found this an okay read that just didn’t deliver on its premise for me. It struck me as less dark and edgy than I feel was intended. However, I do appreciate that due to my background I can be more critical to how magical practices and its practitioners are represented in fiction.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

This is billed as horror / erotica/ black magic and its not my usual type of book. It has a interesting premise but I did get lost part way through. Some sections were too OTT for me, but that's a personal preference.

The Book of the Precious Substance is "the rarest, most sought after book in the entire bibliography of the occult." "I never worked with other dealers. I never went chasing after ridiculous books. I never counted money before it was in hand...It was like the book already had me, and was leading me exactly where it wanted." There are only 3 copies in existence and to find it guarantees sexual pleasure and people will stop at nothing to get it.

Lily Albrecht, a rare books dealer, embarks on a search for an early seventeenth century manuscript called The Book of the Most Precious Substance. The book is worth a million or two and finding it would solve Lily's many financial woes. But the search is complicated in that Lily has to find not only the book but also its mystery buyer.

Accompanied by another book dealer, Lucas, Lily's search takes her from New York to Munich and Paris, and onto a perilous journey of sexual reawakening and self-discovery. The closer Lily and Lucas get to the book the stronger its pull and their increasingly intimate interaction with the mystery and promise the book contains. There are challenges that must be fulfilled to move up in the process towards the final fifth step which offers to meet one's heart's deepest desire, be it for money, power or something entirely different.

Themes of the occult and sex are interlinked in the story, with Lily and Lucas as the main players, but other characters surfacing later to add more piquant sexual currents.

The Book of the Most Precious Substance has great promise but for me falls short in the final execution. The atmosphere isn't quite developed as most of the story revolves around people dining, details of their menus and descriptions of rich clients' mansions. The sexual elements don't add much context or purpose. I would imagine that going back in time to the moment the book was created and meeting its authors "in person" would have added the much needed depth to the occult aspect of the story.

Lily's backstory is engaging. Her love of her gravely ill husband Abel comes across as fatalistically real and evokes great empathy in the reader. The ending of the book brings release and I found it satisfying.

Three and a half stars rounded up!

So much promise, great cover, great synopsis and I did enjoy reading it but it wasn't what I expected or was hoping for

What started as a fun quest to find a rare book, turned out to be more magicians and sex cults than I expected.

I found the structure to be a bit repetitive at times - a new character has a on the book hunt - sex act - a new clue. But a fun ride (lol) nonetheless.

Pick up this book if: you wish The Da Vinci Code was more horny

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was definitely not a horror story as advertised, but more a erotic thriller. It started promising, but then the storyline got very repetitive. It also didn’t help that the characters were not very likeable. Overall it was a easy read, I just didn’t connect with the story.

I got this arc in exchange for an honest review.

A thriller about the chase for a rare book is just so far up my street, so I was really excited to get into Gran’s latest novel and it definitely delivered. It was a little slow to get going and heavy on the exposition about protagonist Lily’s life as a former bestselling author turned book dealer following her partner’s mystery illness. But once she was on the hunt for the missing Book of the Most Precious Substance things picked up, and the hints of foreboding kept me reading. It was a bit heavier on the erotic fiction side than I was expecting - the missing book is about sex magic, it turns out - but, while I didn’t mind that, I could see where it might have been marketed poorly on that front.