By Genevieve Cogman
This is the latest installment in The Invisible Library series. If you love reading – this is the series for you! The main character is a Librarian, a super spy who is tasked with stealing tomes from different worlds to keep the balance between order and chaos. There are understandably lots of literary references and characters, and always a mystery to solve. And finally, librarians are cast in the superhero roles they were meant to inhabit.
Irene, Librarian-in-Residence and newly-appointed Treaty Representative, is tasked with getting a book to save the world where she spent her formative years not so long ago. Predictably, Kai, her dragon partner, in all senses of the word, and fellow Treaty Representative insists on accompanying her on the mission.
They are sent on another mission by Mr. Nemo, a Fae who is the embodiment of the name he sports, to get this same book that only he possesses as payment for success. Thus they are thrust into a heist that requires interspecies cooperation from Fae, Dragons, and Librarians, who traditionally would rather fight. Irene must become a leader they all respect, and engender trust throughout the group, a near impossibility, to get her book. Of course she must also stave off the catastrophe that threatens her hard won truce and will have universe-dissolving consequences, NBD.
I love this series, and it keeps getting better with age!
Soundtrack
- Mission Impossible Theme
- Chopper Chase/Face Off from The Italian Job (2003)
- $160 Million Chinese Man from Ocean’s Eleven
- Mombasa from Inception
Pros & Cons & Potential Spoilers
Pros
- Irene is a smart heroine who uses her mind to get out of difficult situations
- The literary/pop culture stereotypes played out by the Fae are amusing and engrossing
- You know someone has to betray the team, but I wasn’t able to figure out which one or why, and I love being outsmarted
Cons
- There is very little to no Vale (this series’ version of Sherlock Holmes) or Alberich, Irene’s arch nemesis, and those are two of my favorite characters