The Lord of Death and the Library — Mary Branscombe

There is no reincarnation, no remembering past lives, no messages or mediums. Death is not kind, or fair; not peace or an ending. But for the right story, it can be a beginning...

"All things come to me in the end," the lord of death warned the girl; "all the stories and all the tales and all the books and everything else besides. I will take them all in the end, because it's my nature." But the girl of books only asked him brightly if he'd brought his own boxes and invited him to supper.

When the lord of death steals the library belonging to the girl of books and she walks halfway around the world to find him, it changes both their lives, in this fairy story for adults, full of charm and allusion.