The Handmaid's Tale Book Novels & Stories

A book sealed by blood, only to be opened by the heir who had both fire and forgiveness. “You must go alone,” the priest said. “Only one may enter the Vault.” Jian stepped forward. “She’s not going without me.” Chaewon touched his hand. “This is mine.” He held her gaze and nodded once. The door hissed open. Inside, the vault pulsed like a heartbeat. And there it was, on a pedestal of scorched stone…a book bound in dark leather, etched with fire-glyphs that moved like liquid under her gaze. As she stepped forward, her hand brushed the surface—and the book opened on its own.

Holy. Lena closed the door, her hand skimming the edge as if shutting a holy vessel. She did not rush to turn off the lights. Rather, she walked between the shelves, letting her fingertips trace worn spines and whitened covers, breathing in the scent of paper and years. The bookstore was her sanctuary. Her cathedral.

It took me a moment to place the unfamiliar voice, but it hit me just as the doorknob began to turn. Mara. My new “handmaid.” The door slowly opened, and I sat up quickly, hurrying to hide the book. The last thing I wanted right now was for nayone to question why I was reading an ancient book on reincarnation, so I quickly grabbed it and looked around, then shoved it under the mattress just as the bedroom door fully opened. Mara stepped in. She was already fully dressed in her crisp uniform, her hair pulled back into a neat bun, with the same overly pleasant expression on her face as yesterday.

They wanted the top and would stop at nothing to get it. “Werewolves,” She sighed and sat down. She didn't understand why, but her thoughts were clouded by that pregnant woman. Something about the woman seemed to pull her in, and she couldn't figure it out. It was like there was something in the woman, calling out to her, but what was it? She was a supreme being, who could figure out things with just a snap of her fingers, but why was this one being difficult for her? She watched as Queen Bathsheba came out of her hiding spot after everything was over. She had witnessed how the men turned against themselves and knew it was the moon goddess' doing.

At the time, I hadn't paid much attention to it, but now. Without wasting another second, I entered the library and headed straight to the fireplace. Crouching down, I forced my hand under the couch, and it landed directly on the book. I pulled it out and read the title – "The Rape Recovery Handbook..."

She knelt at the small cold hearth with the last of the fire she would allow herself, and she opened the book one final time, meaning to feed it page by page to the flame, and she began to read the names as she tore, because it seemed wrong to burn men without at least reading them first. And somewhere in the reading, her hands stopped. She had always read the book the way Caius meant it to be read, down its columns, name beside secret, each entry a private leash from Caius to one frightened soul. A machine for holding individuals. But she was too tired now to read it his way, and in her tiredness she read it wrong, read it sideways, read it as the whole thing at once, and what she saw was n

Some were bound in what might have been leather, but most were wrapped in cloth stained with strange patterns that seemed to shift when one looked away, or sealed in wax that had melted and hardened again in uneven blobs like frozen tears. “This is where we keep the things you didn’t write,” the woman said, running her fingers over a stack of books wrapped in dark green cloth. Her touch was gentle, reverent almost. “The parts of the world that grew on their own while you were gone, while you were living your life in another place and time. Your manuscript was just a seed, Miss Isadora. But seeds have a way of sending roots into soil you never knew existed.”

My mother, Sophie Nash, was also my homeroom teacher, and she loved nothing more than using me to assert her authority. She was convinced that the worse off I was, the more afraid my classmates would be, and the higher her authority would be. Once, when I passed an eraser to a classmate during class, she slapped me so hard across the face in front of the whole class that my face swelled up. Another time, after I secretly ate a crumb of a classmate’s snack during recess, my mom dragged me up to the front of the classroom and pricked my lip with a needle until blood gushed out. Later, when a classmate was caught by the vice principal for having a romantic relationship while underaged, my m

She muttered, her voice barely audible and her eyes were as wide as the size of an orange. “I will have to fuck you and prove to the Bratva that you’ve never been touched before.” The side of my face brushed hers and she held her breath, waiting for what was coming next. “I hope no fucker has ever touchedyou, Little Ballerina?”

I wrapped my free hand in the satin fabric of the dress, trying my best to control my anxiety as Alpha Kaia opened the book that lay before her on the altar. It was the Book of the Moon, the sacred writings that the Goddess had left for us. I had never seen it with my own eyes and, Holy Moon, just thinking that the Alpha herself was about to perform that ceremony made me tremble.