Title: The Librarian of Crooked Lane (Glass Library #1)
Author: CJ Archer
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Rating: ★★★★★
Source: Amazon (personal purchase)
Blurb: Librarian Sylvia Ashe knows nothing about her past, having grown up without a father and a mother who refused to discuss him. When she stumbles upon a diary that suggests she’s descended from magicians, she’s skeptical. After all, magicians are special, and she’s just an ordinary girl who loves books. She seeks the truth from a member of the most prominent family of magicians, but she quickly learns that finding the truth won’t be easy, especially when he turns out to be as artless as her, and more compelling and dangerous than books.
War hero Gabe is gifted with wealth, a loving family, and an incredible amount of luck that saw him survive four harrowing years of a brutal war without injury. But not all injuries are visible. Burying himself in his work as a consultant for Scotland Yard, Gabe is going through the motions as he investigates the theft of a magician-made painting. But his life changes when he unwittingly gets Sylvia dismissed from her job and places her in danger.
After securing her new employment in a library housing the world’s greatest collection of books about magic, Gabe and Sylvia’s lives become intwined as they work together to find both the painting and the truth about Sylvia’s past before powerful people can stop them.
But sometimes the past is better left buried…

Review: I stumbled on this while researching historical fantasy as a genre to write, and I’m so glad that I did! This is an incredibly easy book to read – engaging characters, smooth prose, and a thrilling plot.
I absolutely loved Sylvia, the heroine. Orphaned and left an only child by the war, she has deep wounds that are excecated by knowing nothing of her father, or her family’s past. All she knows is that her mother kept on moving.
Pulled into the action when she witnesses the attempted kidnapping of Gabe, Sylvia is often a pawn of the plot, but doesn’t allow that to make her helpless – she fends off the kidnappers and her own would-be assaulter with gumption. She’s a damsel and she’s in distress, but she can handle it.
Not that Gabe is backing down without arguing. He’s quite the hero, gallantly getting Sylvia a new job when his interference scuppers the one she hates, putting her in place in the Glass Library – named for his family and not, sadly, made of actual glass. This is full of books on magic and a position Sylvia comes to love.
I love how magic is tied to elements in this story. There are paint magicians, paper ones, silver, etc, and whatever the heck Gabe is. This is a series and, while it’s hinted at, the reader doesn’t get to learn his secret just yet.
There are fabulous side characters as well. Gabe’s best friend Alex, his wild American cousin Willie (who’s a woman) and the stalwart Cyclops. Each one is very individual, remarkably drawn through their conversations (physical descriptions are few) and their actions.
An easy five stars, I cannot wait to read the rest of this series.
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