Magic exists. A magician might have time magic, or ink magic, or ceramics magic. It makes their craft better than the “artless,” or non-magical people. Sylvia might have silver magic. Unsure, she seeks advice from the well-regarded magical Glass family but is soon part of a kidnapping and murder mystery, while also becoming the eponymous librarian. She also quickly falls for the Glass heir, but alas, he’s engaged. This is an entertaining first in a series involving the magical family Glass’s library, which houses rare books on magic. I’m very tempted to continue the series. ( )

Fun and light reading as Sylvia Ashe, a young woman entirely on her own a few years after the Great War, works as a librarian in London and pursues a clue to her origins left in her deceased brother's notes encountering the not quite so young Gabe Glass, heir to a Lordship and patron of the Glass Library. Gabe is working as a consultant for Scotland yard on the disappearance of a magical painting and Sylvia keeps getting more and more involved with the case, throwing them together. The story moves well but is so close to pure silliness that in never quite engages the feelings. Good for when there is a need for a light reading break. ( )

Sylvia is working in a library after moving to London upon the deaths of her brother and mother. Seeing a name in the newspaper reminds her of something. She looks through the belongings of mother and brother she finds the name. Using her friend's boyfriend's recommendation, she gets a job as a waitress for a function at the Royal Academy's spring show hoping to meet the son of the name listed in her brother's belongings. She ends up getting involved in theft, attempted kidnapping, and murder. Will she be able to find out why her brother had the name in his notebook? Will she be alive at the end of the adventure?

I enjoyed this book. I liked Sylvia. She knows nothing about her family's past, only her brother's supposition that they are silver magicians. Sylvia does not believe it as she has no evidence of it and since her mother never told them about their father or her past, Sylvia has no one to ask. Gabe, the son of the name listed in her brother's book, has no answers for her and his parents have left for America. She is there when he almost is kidnapped and thwarts the kidnapper. To an extent, he takes her under his wing to help with his investigation of art thefts. I liked Sylvia's inquisitiveness. I liked how Gabe listened to her. Their minds truly were on the same track. At times Sylvia could be a little stubborn but she generally knew what was best in the end. I loved how Gabe's butler and housekeeper looked after her, much to Gabe's chagrin.

The story was good. I was hooked from the beginning. The secondary characters were interesting. I liked Sylvia's friend Daisy. I also liked Cyclops, Gabe's friend at Scotland Yard. Alex, Cyclop's son and Gabe's friend, and Willie, Gabe's mother's cousin, were harder to like. There were times I wanted to drop kick Willie into next week. Alex, I'm still on the fence about. The villains are a eclectic bunch. I never expected how it all came together.

I cannot wait to read book 2. ( )

I listened to The Librarian of Crooked Lane via a recommendation from Hoopla. Set in London just after WWI, the novel follows the exploits of a working class young woman, Sylvia, who is struggling to find work now that men have returned. As this is a fantasy novel, she is also trying to discover if there is magic in her family line. She contrives to meet a society woman who may be able to help her but ends up becoming connected to the son, instead, a war hero who specifically investigates magical crimes for Scotland Yard. They join forces to investigate the thefts of magical paintings. Romantic tension ensues, of course.

I enjoyed the story and the narrator did a good job capturing voices and personalities of a wide variety of characters. The next volume in the series comes out next week and I plan to continue with it once Hoopla gets the audio version. ( )

A thoroughly average read that wasn’t a waste of time, but definitely was the perfect library loan. I would have been displeased had I bought this, but as a library loan I can forgive a lot. And there are quite a few things requiring forgiveness.

First off, the synopsis implies this book is a lot more involved than it actually is. 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… Um… no. I mean, yes, they’re searching for the painting, but there is no search for Sylvia’s past beyond occasional speculation, and there are no powerful people trying to stop them. There’s an attempted kidnapping at the beginning that’s never explained, but perhaps that’s part of a series arc? And the ‘magic’ isn’t really anything of the sort. It’s described as magic and apparently spells are used, but as near as this book comes to explaining it, ‘magicians’ are merely people who are extraordinarily gifted at their chosen craft and are obsessed with it. Which doesn’t strike me as all that magical.

For all of that though, the writing was good, and way better than average for a book that was apparently self-published. While the writing lacked sophistication and polish, it was far better edited and copyedited than your average big publishing house efforts. The plotting of the mystery was very well done too. I feel like, had the author had a big publishing team pushing her, this could have easily been a 4 star read.

This was a fast read that Libby informs me took just a few minutes over 4 hours to finish. If my libraries have the second book, I’d be happy to read it, and might enjoy it more now that my expectations have been adjusted by book 1. ( )