The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

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In the vein of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Life After Life, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab’s genre-defying tour de force.

A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever―and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

Other books by V. E. Schwab
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Shades of Magic series
A Darker Shade of Magic
A Gathering of Shadows
A Conjuring of Light
The Fragile Threads of Power

Villains Series
Vicious
Vengeful
Victorious* Coming October 2026

VICTORIA “V. E.” SCHWAB is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades of Magic series, the Villains series, the Cassidy Blake series and the international bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Her work has received critical acclaim, translated into over two dozen languages, and optioned for television and film. First Kill – a YA vampire series based on Schwab’s short story of the same name – is currently in the works at Netflix with Emma Roberts’ Belletrist Productions producing. When she's not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is usually tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.

Praise for The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue:

"Completely absorbed me enough to make me forget the real world." ― Jodi Picoult, Washington Post

“Victoria Schwab sends you whirling through a dizzying kaleidoscopic adventure through centuries filled with love, loss, art and war ― all the while dazzling your senses with hundreds of tiny magical moments along the way. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue will enchant readers as deeply as its heroine’s Faustian bargain; you will find yourself in quick turns both aching with heartbreak, and gleefully crowing at the truly delicious, wicked cleverness in store.”
― Naomi Novik, Nebula and Locus Award-winning author of Spinning Silver

“Addie Larue is a book perfectly suspended between darkness and light, myth and reality. [This novel] is―ironically―unforgettable.” ― Hugo Award winner Alix E. Harrow, author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is the kind of book you encounter only once in a lifetime. . . . A defiant, joyous rebellion against time, fate, and even death itself―and a powerful reminder that the only magic great enough to conquer all of it is love.”― Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M

“Sweeping in its scope yet wonderfully intimate, it's dark and sexy yet romantic and heartbreaking.” ―Rebecca Roanhorse, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Black Sun

“Rich and satisfying.” –Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“A knockout.” –Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Epic.” –Library Journal, Starred Review

“Deeply romantic, impossibly detailed.” –Booklist, Starred Review

“A delightful surprise and a balm in difficult times..” –BookPage, Starred Review

“Schwab’s page-turner is an achingly poignant romantic fantasy about the desperate desire to make one’s mark on the world.” ―Oprah.com, Best LGBTQ Books of 2020

“A beautiful, meditative novel with an ending that hit me right in the heart.” ―Buzzfeed, Best Fall Fantasy 2020

"It's a bit cheeky to call The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Faust for romantic bisexual goths, but it's not wrong... I for one will most certainly remember her."―NPR

“Addie is unlike anything Schwab has written before―epic yet intimate, sweeping but not sprawling... If Addie shows anything, it’s that the impact of our actions and interactions can be vaster and longer-lasting than we can predict. Much like the seven freckles that sprinkle Addie’s face, we create our own constellations, and as we live through these darkened days, I feel brighter for having added Addie to mine.”―Slate

“Schwab beautifully explores what it means to be alone for so long that it's jarring and terrifying once you are finally seen...Addie is an independent and fascinating character who manages to make her mark in spite of the odds.”―USA Today

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab is a lyrical, bittersweet fantasy about a woman who makes a desperate bargain to escape the limits of her life and discovers that freedom without connection can become its own kind of prison. The story begins in early 18th century France, where Adeline LaRue is a young woman suffocating under the expectations of her small village. Her world is narrow: she is expected to marry, have children, and live out a quiet, predictable life. But Addie is restless, curious, and deeply afraid of being trapped. She dreams of art, travel, and seeing the world beyond her village. As the day of her unwanted wedding approaches, she becomes frantic. In her fear, she turns to the old gods she has heard whispers about, the kind who are said to answer at night. She has been told never to pray to gods who answer after dark, but in her desperation she does exactly that. One night, a dark, ancient presence responds. Addie begs for a way out of her fate, for time and freedom, for a life that is entirely her own. The god, who takes the shape of a beautiful, dangerous man she later calls Luc, grants her wish—but at a price she doesn’t fully grasp until it is too late.

The bargain gives Addie immortality and independence. She will not age, and no one will own her or force her into marriage or a fixed role. She is free from the constraints of her village and her time. However, the curse attached to this wish is cruelly specific: she is forgotten by everyone she meets as soon as she is out of their sight. She cannot leave a lasting mark. No one remembers her name, no one recognizes her face, she cannot write her name, sign a contract, or keep a home. Every time she turns away, they forget. Her family forgets her, her friends forget her, and she becomes a ghost moving through life. At first, this is terrifying. She is turned away from doors, accused of theft, treated as a stranger by people she knew moments before. She realizes that although she has escaped her old fate, she has lost something equally vital: the ability to be known.

The book moves back and forth between Addie’s past across three centuries and her present in New York City in 2014. In the centuries between, Addie survives by learning how to slip into lives temporarily. She becomes skilled at adaptation and silent influence. Though she cannot be remembered, she discovers she can inspire ideas that linger. Artists and musicians she spends time with may forget her as a person, but they sometimes recall her in their work—as a face in a painting, a motif in a song, a recurring figure in stories. In this way, she finds a loophole: she may not be remembered in words, but she can still exist in art. This becomes one of the quiet strengths of the book. Addie’s long life is full of cities, wars, lovers, and losses, but her true battle is always about meaning: what does it mean to live forever if you can never truly belong?

Luc, the dark god who granted her curse, appears periodically throughout her life. He offers her the chance to give up, to surrender her soul and end the loneliness. Their relationship is complicated. At first, he is her tormentor, the one who sentenced her to this strange existence. Over time, as they keep meeting, they develop a twisted intimacy. Luc is the only one who remembers her, making him both her enemy and the only constant presence in her endless life. Their connection sometimes feels like a romance, sometimes like a power struggle, sometimes like a conversation between two beings who understand each other too well. Addie refuses to give Luc what he wants—her soul—because surrender would mean admitting defeat. She stubbornly clings to her life, insisting that she can still find a way to make it meaningful.

In the present-day storyline, Addie has learned to navigate life in modern New York. She steals what she needs, slips in and out of people’s lives, and spends much of her time in bookstores, museums, and cafes where art reminds her she still influences the world in small ways. Then something impossible happens: she meets a young man named Henry Strauss in a bookstore, and when she leaves and returns, he remembers her. For the first time in three hundred years, someone remembers Addie LaRue. This moment breaks the rules of her curse and changes everything. Shocked and cautious, she tests him, but Henry truly remembers her face, her name, and the conversations they’ve had. This is the turning point of the novel, shifting it into a tender, modern love story woven through the darker threads of her pact.

Henry is a gentle, insecure, and searching person. He works in a bookstore, struggles with feeling “not enough,” and carries his own quiet pain. He has also made a bargain—different from Addie’s, but with the same dark god. Where Addie wished for time and freedom, Henry wished to be enough, to be loved and accepted without doubt. Luc gave him a charm that makes everyone see Henry as exactly what they need: charming, lovable, satisfactory. Yet there is a hidden price and time limit on his deal. As Addie and Henry grow closer, they share their secrets, their fears, and the knowledge that both of their lives are shaped by bargains that cannot last forever without consequence.

Their relationship gives Addie something she never had: someone who knows her, remembers her, and cares for her as a real person instead of an echo. With Henry, she can experience everyday things—dinners, conversations, shared jokes—without the dread of vanishing from his memory. For Henry, Addie is the one person who sees him as himself, not as the magically enhanced version everyone else sees. This mutual recognition forms the emotional heart of the book. Two people who have felt isolated in different ways find each other and briefly experience a deeply human connection. Through Henry, Addie also begins to leave a more concrete mark, as he creates art and stories about her, and as her presence changes his choices.

However, the curse and the deals they have made cannot be simply ignored. Luc remains a looming force, jealous and possessive, unwilling to let Addie find happiness beyond his reach. As truths unfold, Henry’s bargain is revealed to have an end date, while Addie’s goes on indefinitely. The tension of the story grows around the question of how to hold onto love and meaning when time itself is bent by deals with a god who trades in souls. Addie must decide what she values more: endless life, the stubborn victory of never surrendering to Luc, or the fragile but profound experience of real connection that comes with risk and loss.

By the end of the novel, Addie’s journey has transformed her from a terrified village girl into a complex, determined woman who has spent centuries studying people, art, and the world. She understands that being remembered is not just about fame or legacy; it is about being known by even one person and choosing what kind of stories you leave behind. She finds a way to protect Henry while continuing her own quiet war with Luc, turning her curse into a kind of resistance. “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” closes on a note that is both hopeful and melancholy. It suggests that a life, even one lived mostly in the shadows, can still matter deeply if it touches hearts, sparks art, and refuses to be erased. The book becomes a meditation on memory, identity, and the stubborn human desire to be seen, to leave a mark, and to claim one’s own story—even when the universe itself seems determined to forget.