The Book of Dust: The Rose Field (Book of Dust, Volume 3)

Written by Philip Pullman

Narrated by Michael Sheen

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The breathtaking conclusion to Philip Pullman’s landmark new trilogy The Book of Dust! Return to the world of His Dark Materials and discover what fate has in store for Lyra, “one of fantasy’s most indelible heroines” (The New York Times Magazine).

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Horn Book, The Boston Globe Blue Ribbon Awards List

“Pullman’s abilities as a storyteller are stupendous, and on full display.”—The Atlantic

“Tremendously entertaining.”—Slate

Lyra Silvertongue is alone in a city haunted by daemons, searching for her beloved Pan. Malcolm Polstead isn’t far behind, searching for Lyra. And they are both racing toward the desert of Karamakan, following the trail of roses said to hold the secret of Dust.

Their allies and enemies are converging on the mysterious red building at the heart of the desert: Marcel Delamare and the military might of the Magisterium; the radical Men from the Mountains; scientists, scholars, and spies; troops of witches and other people of the air. And awaiting them all is a previously unseen and chilling new threat that will change everything.

The intertwining odysseys of Malcolm and Lyra, their journeys both internal and external, will test their limits and challenge even their most dearly held beliefs.

As ever, Philip Pullman is using the language of fantasy to illuminate our world and to explore the deepest questions of what it means to be alive and awake to all the splendors and horrors around us. The extraordinary novels of The Book of Dust speak powerfully to today’s readers and will take their place alongside the forever-favorites of His Dark Materials.

Look for the entire trilogy of THE BOOK OF DUST:
La Belle Sauvage • The Secret Commonwealth • The Rose Field

And Lyra’s adventures begin in HIS DARK MATERIALS:
The Golden Compass • The Subtle Knife • The Amber Spyglass

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 23, 2025
• ISBN: 9798217172504

Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman (b. 1946) is one of the world’s most acclaimed children’s authors, his bold, brilliant books having set new parameters for what children’s writing can say and do. He is best known for the His Dark Materials trilogy, installments of which have won the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. In 2003, the trilogy came third in the BBC’s Big Read competition to find the nation’s favorite book, and in 2005 he was awarded the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international prize for children’s literature. In 2007, Northern Lights became a major Hollywood film, The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Pullman has published nearly twenty books, and when he’s not writing he likes to play the piano (badly), draw, and make things out of wood.

Reviews for The Book of Dust

[xavierdragnesi · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

After finishing The Secret Commonwealth, I recall my thoughts generally being ‘I don’t quite understand where all of this is going, but I’m sure it’ll make more sense in the final book’. Now having finished The Rose Field, more questions have been raised than answers, and I’m left in largely the same mindset, but without the benefit of any additional book to come.

The first 30-40% of the book felt quite engaging for me, as it seemed like the stage was being set for a climax both at a personal level for the main characters, as well as on a more macro global level, centring around the red building in the desert which had already received so much exposition. It was fascinating to meet the gryphons and have a glimpse at how their society worked, especially in the way that it felt a bit like a call back to the armoured bears, and also to see the witches becoming involved again. Abdel Ionides was also an interesting new character for me, and I was curious what role this scholar-turned-semi-spy-or-sorcerer was going to play once things came to a head. The early revelation about the various unclosed windows was unexpected and seemed largely unforeshadowed, but I was willing to keep an open mind and see where this led, given this was such a vital element of the conclusion of the previous trilogy.

However, it became gradually apparent in the second half of the book that resolution was going to be significantly wanting. Many of the storylines and characters ended up being completely abandoned with no sense of why they were introduced at all. Even the main relationship between Lyra and Malcolm, around which so much of the book revolved, and which I thought was subtly developed in many ways (e.g. through references to his gold to her silver, and the discussions on age with the witches), turned out to be summarily dismissed with the two never truly engaging with each other on their emotions. Given my history with His Dark Materials, it’s probably unsurprising that the elephant in the room for me was the full 180º flip on how the windows between worlds were treated and how quickly Lyra seemed to come to terms with the fact that her sacrifice at the end of The Amber Spyglass was unwarranted, but the more I have thought about the The Rose Field more generally, the more it feels that the final position for very few of the characters is either earned from their experiences, made sense based on preceding actions, or was emotionally compelling. The final chapter felt like the cherry on top (or on the bottom?), with the entire vibe being completely out of kilter with all the events leading up to it.

I think I had put a lot of trust in Pullman’s ability to bring things together to a powerful and meaningful (even if not entirely satisfying) ending, particularly given how His Dark Materials was rounded off, so it’s all the more disappointing that this is how we leave Lyra, ostensibly for good. I tossed up whether to give this a 2 star or 3 star, and ultimately went with 3 since I feel it was still overall a decent reading experience thanks to Pullman’s writing style, the high points in the story as well as the fantastical elements that have helped make Lyra’s world so alluring from the beginning, but ultimately the flashes in the pan and the nostalgia can only go so far in counterbalancing the plot holes, the retconning and the lack of a real conclusion to the vast majority of the setup over the course of the trilogy.