Audiobook Review: The Librarian of Crooked Lane by C. J. Archer

The Librarian of Crooked Lane
Author: C. J. Archer
Narrator: Marian Hussey
Series: The Glass Library (Book 1)
Publication: Self-Published (September 2, 2022)
Length: 8 hours and 9 minutes

Description: A librarian with a mysterious past, a war hero with a secret, and the heist of a magic painting. The Librarian of Crooked Lane is an intriguing new fantasy from C.J. Archer, the USA Today best-selling author of the Glass and Steele series.

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 woman who loves books. She seeks answers 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?

My Thoughts: This historical fantasy is set in England just after World War I. Sylvia Ashe is an orphan after the loss of her brother in battle and in mother to disease. She has found, in her brother's journals, a mystery. Is she related to a silver mage? She doesn't feel that she has any magical abilities of her own.

Clues lead her to London and to Gabe. Gabe is wealthy and his mother is a magician. Gabe is also lucky having gotten through several battles with no injuries. He has also recently become a hero by saving a young boy when a boat capsized. 

Sylvia and her friend wish to meet Gabe for an introduction to his mother. Hopefully, she will have some answers about Sylvia's unknown past. But Sylvia soon finds herself entangled in another mystery when magical paintings are stolen from the gallery where she's been working as a packer. 

Banding with Gabe who is consulting for Scotland Yard, the pair try to unravel the clues and figure out what Sylvia's part in the mystery was. To help her out, Gabe has also gotten a job for her in the Glass Library which is a large gathering of books about magic. Maybe some clues to her past are in those volumes.

I enjoyed this story which was a nice combination of mystery and magic with potential romance in there too. It is the first of a series and leaves a number of plot threads dangling. I look forward to reading more to see what happens next for this entertaining group of characters.

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.