This wasn’t a book that made me feel highly excitable, where I was left feeling like the story was almost going too fast for me to keep up. This was a steady influx of tense adrenaline in the pit of my stomach. You know the feeling, the feeling of wondering when the other shoe will drop and there’s bound to be trouble afoot. Don’t mistake my description for a dull read, because believe me when I say that there’s plenty of action in this story. It’s the way it’s told that make you feel all anticipatory. There’s a sense of danger through the whole thing and the characters are well cemented to further strengthen it all. They are well thought through and oh so clever. I loved the whole thing from start to finish, though I do warn you of the prologue. It can seem a little dry, but you’ll need that backdrop to get familiar with the world of the Great Library. It’s worth every word of academic style dryness, as it gives you an overall perspective for when you meet the main character Jess and the other players in this story.
This is a different setting than Caine’s other books but her storytelling is as good as her Weather Warden series. It pulls you in and stays with you during the day when not reading. You’ll not be sorry to pick this up!
Jess Brightwell is the son of a black market dealer who specializes in acquiring and selling books in a world where books have been outlawed for the safety of both the humankind and the books themselves.
It’s about a world obsessed with words, with books, with knowledge. It’s a world where these things are strictly controlled by an organization named the Library who believes that the wrong kind of information can corrupt the denizens of the world and that humans thus need to be protected against themselves. Though no one may own a real book, it’s thought of as a sin to deprive the masses of the wisdom of the written word and so when the discovery of alchemy produced the mirrored tablet, the Library enabled everyone, even the lowest of the low, to have access to all the great (approved) works that’s ever been written. It’s a time of enlightenment where everyone can read and write, and to be chosen by the Library to preserve and protect the written word is an honor and a privilege.
For Jess, this means a life of constant danger. As his father’s son he’s meant to spy for the family business of black market dealings and no things are as valuable as original books in a world where they are the rarest item out there. And the best and worst place to acquire these rare books? The Library’s HQ of course, in Alexandria.
I’m really looking forward to read about how Jess and his friends fare in the next installment of the Great Library series, Paper and Fire. 🙂
I received this copy from the publisher (Berkley Publishing Group) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. To see the beautiful cover for this book, check it out on Goodreads or Amazon. It’s amazing!
Loony for books 