Book Review: The Journal of a Thousand Years by C. J. Archer

The Journal of a Thousand Years
Author: C. J. Archer
Series: The Glass Library (Book 6)
Publication: Self-Published (March 4, 2025)

Description: An ancient family diary. A timely prophecy. An epic conclusion.

As Sylvia prepares to meet Gabe’s parents for the first time, the last thing she needs is for her long-lost father to cause trouble. While his answers to her questions finally bring clarity, they also usher in danger.

But that's not all her elusive father brings into Sylvia's life. His treasured gift of an ancient journal passed down through the generations, connects her to the past with its mystical spells and captivating stories. Yet it’s the cryptic prophecy written on magical pages that capture Sylvia’s attention, hinting at a destiny entwined with Gabe’s. Does it relate to the threat of abduction that has dogged him for months?

The world’s fascination with his miraculous survival has drawn unwanted attention, leading to desperate attempts to unravel the secrets behind his extraordinary abilities. When these efforts fail, his enemies resort to drastic measures, targeting Sylvia to lure Gabe into their clutches.

Despite her caution, Sylvia realizes she may have inadvertently placed Gabe in danger. Has his luck finally run out?

Only time will reveal the truth.

My Thoughts: This is the sixth and final (?) book in the Glass Library fantasy series. Through it all Sylvia has been looking for her past and her heritage. Raised by a mother who moved frequently and didn't tell her son or daughter anything about her past, Sylvia was left alone with many secrets to unravel.

She found friends in the Glass Library and had many adventures along the way when she fell in love with Gabriel who has many secrets of his own. In fact, quite a few factions from bookies to military intelligence are very eager to experiment on him to try to understand the magical talent that he denies having. 

In this episode, Sylvia is kidnapped but escapes with the aid of her newly discovered paper magic and Gabe is kidnapped too. He was rescued by Sylvia and his friends Alex and Willie. Sylvia also finally meets and loses her father in this adventure.

This was an engaging story set in an intriguing fantasy world. The very real aftermath of World War I combines with magic to make an excellent setting. The characters are well-developed and interestingly quirky. The romances are varied but are all believable.

I bought this one March 17, 2025. You can buy your copy here.

Book Review: The Dead Letter Delivery by C. J. Archer

The Dead Letter Delivery
Author: C. J. Archer
Series: The Glass Library (Book 4)
Publication: Self Published (March 5, 2024)

Description: The discovery of long-lost mail delivers a marriage proposal, a missing person, and a magical mystery.

A road trip with Gabe and her friends leads Sylvia to discover more about her mother’s veiled past yet throws up several questions, too. The stack of unopened letters addressed to her family will hopefully provide answers. As she delves into the contents, a startling revelation emerges: the letters allude to a clandestine union between two magician families, hinting at the elusive identity of Sylvia’s father.

Full of hope, she embarks on a quest to find the author of the letters, only to discover an artless youth who vanished decades ago, a dead man with the wrong name, and a hospital for former soldiers that connects them. The further Sylvia and Gabe delve into these mysteries, the more lies they expose, including long-buried secrets that certain individuals will stop at nothing to protect.

When danger strikes, Sylvia wonders if finding answers is worth the risk.

My Thoughts: The fourth book in the Glass Library continues threads begun in earlier books. Sylvia is still on a quest to find out more about her mysterious mother and the magical gift for paper that she has discovered in herself. 

A road trip with Gabe and her friends leads her to discover who her mother was but not what she did in the years before she died. A cache of dead letters reveals a possible suitor for her mother who could have potentially been her father. 

Most of the story is spent trying to track down this mysterious suitor which leads to stolen identities and a shady doctor running a hospital which is now trying to cure shell-shocked World War I victimes but which had earlier been a site for the artless of magical families who wanted to see if their magic could be activated by medical treatment. 

Sylvia learns to use a paper spell which strengthens paper and proves (mostly to herself) that she is an actual paper magician. However, questions about who her father was are still left unresolved.

Also unresolved is her growing relationship with Gabe. 

This was an engaging episode in the series even with the slowest of slow-burn romances. I like the worldbuilding and the setting of an England in an alternate 1920 which is mostly like our own but with the addition of magic. 

I bought this one March 8, 2024. You can buy your copy here.

Book Review: The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

The Cartographers
Author: Peng Shepherd
Publication: William Morrow (March 15, 2022)

Description: From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father’s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret—one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family’s dark history.

What is the purpose of a map?

Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence...because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one—along with anyone who gets in the way.

But why?

To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret and discovers the true power that lies in maps...

Perfect for fans of Joe Hill and V. E. Schwab, The Cartographers is an ode to art and science, history and magic—a spectacularly imaginative, modern story about an ancient craft and places still undiscovered.

My Thoughts: This book asks the question: what is a map? and explores the answers. It is a mystery. It is a romance. It is a story of friendship and love spanning years. It is a story about obsession. It is magical realism. 

Nell Young is a cartographer like her parents were and are. Her mother died when she was young and she has been raised by her father Dr. Daniel Young, who works in the Maps Division of the New York Public Library. She interned their until she had a terrible fight with her father over a useless roadmap she discovered while searching the uncatalogued section of the storage areas of the NYPL. She hasn't spoken to her father since he had her fired and ruined her reputation.

When she receives a phone call from the NYPL telling her that her father was found dead at his desk, she goes there are discovers a portfolio in a hidden compartment of his desk containing that same worthless roadmap. 

However, Nell soon learns that the map is not worthless. In fact, it may be the only copy still in existence since a secretive collector has been buying copies at outrageous prices for many years. As she explores her father's life to discover why this map is so very important, she learns many secrets about maps and about her own past. 

She is aided in her search by a former boyfriend who shared in her fall from grace but who has found a new job working for a tech company determined to map the world. 

This was an engaging story that kept me turning the pages to find out what would happen next. 

Favorite Quote:

Maps were love letters written to times and places their makers had explored.

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

Friday Memes: The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

 Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

We tend to think of maps as perfectly accurate -- after all, that's the point of them. What good would a map that lied be? But in fact, many maps do just that. 

Friday 56:

This was such a bad idea, she thought. But it was too late now. She still could hardly believe she'd actually messaged him -- even for Swann.

This week I am spotlighting The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd. I heard a lot about this book, so when it went on sale, I bought a copy for my Kindle. Here is the description from Amazon:

From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father’s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret—one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family’s dark history.

What is the purpose of a map?

Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence...because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one—along with anyone who gets in the way.

But why?

To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret and discovers the true power that lies in maps...

Perfect for fans of Joe Hill and V. E. Schwab, The Cartographers is an ode to art and science, history and magic—a spectacularly imaginative, modern story about an ancient craft and places still undiscovered.

Book & Audio Review: Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley

Bellewether
Author: Susanna Kearsley
Narrator: Tim Campbell, Megan Tusing & Sarah Mollo-Christensen
Publication: Sourcebooks Landmark (August 7, 2018); Audible Studios (November 6, 2018)
Length: 452 p.; 13 hours and 38 minutes

Description: Secrets aren't such easy things to keep: It's late summer in 1759, war is raging, and families are torn apart by divided loyalties and deadly secrets. In this complex and dangerous time, a young French-Canadian lieutenant is captured and billeted with a Long Island family, an unwilling and unwelcome guest.

As he begins to pitch in with the never-ending household tasks and farm chores, Jean-Philippe de Sabran finds himself drawn to Lydia, the daughter of the house. Slowly, Lydia Wilde discovers that Jean-Philippe is a true soldier and gentleman, until their lives become inextricably intertwined.

Legend has it that the forbidden love between Jean-Philippe and Lydia ended tragically, but centuries later, the clues they left behind reveal the true story.

Susanna Kearsley's books combine the magic of Deborah Harkness's All Souls Trilogy, the remarkable women of Lucinda Riley's Seven Sisters Series, and the intrigue of books by Simone St. James.

Part history, part romance, and all kinds of magic, Susanna Kearsley's latest masterpiece will draw you in and never let you go, even long after you've turned the last page.

My Thoughts: Charley Van Hoek has come to Long Island to offer support to her niece after the sudden death of her father, Charley's brother Niels. Van Hoek is a famous name in the area. Her grandmother still lives there though Charley has never met her. Charley's father was opposed to the Vietnam War and left to live in Canada which caused a major rift in the family. 

Charley has taken a job as a museum curator at Wilde House, most famous for being the home of Benjamin Wilde a patriot during the Revolutionary War. But Charley becomes more fascinated with a ghost story she is told by one of the board, himself a descendent of the Wildes. It seems that during the French and Indian War the Wildes took in a couple of French officers who had given their paroles. Legend says that the daughter of the house Lydia fell in love with one of them who was murdered by Lydia's brother. Then Lydia herself died at age twenty-one. It is said that the French soldier wanders the woods lighting the way for Lydia to follow so that they could run away together. Charley would like to try to prove the story and add it to the story that the museum is to tell, but a few of the board members are quite opposed.

The story is told from three points of view. Charley has the present time and we watch her investigate the mystery, deal with her grief and her niece's, and fall in love with the contractor restoring the house. 

The second point of view is Lydia's. She tells of her life at the end of the French and Indian War as she deals with grief at the loss of her fiancé and tries to help her brother Joseph heal from the mental damage done to him by being caught in one of the battles. She also finds herself dealing with the growing unrest in the colonies rising from the British Empire's unfair treatment. 

The final point of view is that of Jean-Philippe who is one of the two French lieutenants quartered with the Wildes. Jean-Baptiste is French-Canadian. He is an officer in the Troupes de la Marine and spent a year with the Seneca when he was ten. He is loyal to his King, brave, and kind. He also speaks no English and the Wildes no French. While the second officer there with him does speak English and can translate, Jean-Philippe gets most of his clues about his situation by observation. 

The story is filled with wonderful characters both in the past and in the present. It also shines a light on some things the history books often miss. I wasn't really aware that slavery was a fact in both the Northern United States and in Canada. And while I had heard about the Acadians, I didn't know that any of them went to New York. I knew little about the French and Indian War and little about the build-up to the American Revolution. While being completely engaged in the stories in the present and the past, I still learned a lot about history while reading this story.

I loved the romances and the parallels between the two time periods as Lydia gradually comes to love Jean-Philippe while Charley falls in love with Sam. 

This was another excellent story by Kearsley and it was well-narrated by Tim Campbell, Megan Tusing and Sarah Mollo-Christensen.

Favorite Quote:

"If life has taught me one thing only, it is never to look back. Be happy where you are. Grow roots where you are standing. If you have the ones you love, then you have everything."

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