REVIEW: The Librarians by Sherry Thomas

JennieB+ Reviews / Book ReviewsLibraries / mystery8 Comments

Sometimes a workplace isn’t just a workplace but a place of safety, understanding, and acceptance. And sometimes murder threatens the sanctity of that beloved refuge….

In the leafy suburbs of Austin, Texas, a small branch library welcomes the public every day of the week. But the patrons who love the helpful, unobtrusive staff and leave rave reviews on Yelp don’t always realize that their librarians are human, too.

Hazel flees halfway across the world for what she hopes will be a new beginning. Jonathan, a six-foot-four former college football player, has never fit in anywhere else. Astrid tries to forget her heartbreak by immersing herself in work, but the man who ghosted her six months ago is back, promising trouble. And Sophie, who has the most to lose, maintains a careful and respectful distance from her coworkers, but soon that won’t be enough anymore.

When two patrons turn up dead after the library’s inaugural murder mystery–themed game night, the librarians’ quiet routines come crashing down. Something sinister has stirred, something that threatens every single one of them. And the only way the librarians can save the library—and themselves—is to let go of their secrets, trust one another, and band together….

All in a day’s work.

When I saw that Sherry Thomas had a new book coming out that wasn’t part of the Lady Sherlock series, I was excited – I enjoy that series but I was intrigued by the contemporary setting of The Librarians and fact that it was a mystery. Though of course the Lady Sherlock books are mysteries, they are of a very specific type, hewing to the formula created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Anyway, a story set in a library in modern-day Austin, Texas, sounded really interesting to me.

I’ll admit that the book started very slow for me, and in fact I thought about dumping it at one point (I almost never dump books, so this was mostly an idle threat). I’m not sure why I had trouble connecting, but I think it had to do with the large-ish number of main characters, who are introduced at the same time and have their backstories thrown at the reader (but without all the details, so I’m left wondering *what* Sophie is afraid of and what Hazel’s deal is, anyway?).

I liked Sophie, Hazel, Jonathan and Astrid, but I was being given their alternating POVs and I didn’t really know them. I don’t mind alternating POVs, at all, but being introduced to four before you really know the characters was a lot.

The library is having a game night. Hazel is new, magnetic, and holding secrets and sorrow about her past. Astrid has a secret of her own; it’s kind of a dumb one but it’s a little heartbreaking to realize how it’s shaped and sometimes misshaped her life (it feels like something you’d read about in a Reddit confession post, honestly). Jonathan is a pretty straightforward fellow, ex-military, gay and reasonably affable. He hasn’t, though, at an age that seems to be late 30s-ish, managed a long term relationship. He doesn’t seem entirely comfortable in his skin.

Then there is Sophie, who is the one of the four with a truly disturbing secret. Sophie is Black, gay, and the mother to an adored teen daughter, Elise (who was low-key my favorite character). Sophie is generally rigidly controlled; a rule follower and risk-adverse. But she’s haunted by a time that she broke the rules and took a big risk, and now she fears she’s being blackmailed over it.

Earlier in the day of game night, Astrid encounters an ex-lover, who is later inexplicably attacked by an apparently homeless man. The game night itself is a success, though afterward Sophie finds herself confronted by one of the attendees.

It’s only in the days that follow that things turn dark – it turns out that one of the game night attendees, as well as another person tied to the library both died that night. The cause of the deaths is unclear, as is any connection between the two. The librarians find themselves questioned by the police, and at least one of them knows more than they are saying about what happened that night.

The Librarians has a romantic subplot involving Hazel and a man who, earlier in her life and half a world away from Austin, was a sort of missed connection for her. It’s really a lovely romance if a bit on the fantastical side. (He is a little too perfect for the real world.)

I mentioned early on that I saw this as a departure from the Lady Sherlock series, but there are actually some strong similarities between those books and this. Chiefly, the characters here, as in the other series, come to form a kind of found family as the story progresses. That’s one of the nicest aspects of the Lady Sherlock series, and it’s lovely to see here too – before Hazel arrives and everything happens Jonathan, Sophie and Astrid are friendly but not friends. Each is rather lonely in their own way and for their own reasons. The events of the book bring them together, unexpectedly, and I really liked that a lot.

The other similarity is the intricately crafted mystery plot, which features different bits of information being revealed to readers at different times (not necessarily sequentially). Since I don’t have a need to guess the killer before it’s revealed in a mystery, I don’t mind that much. (As it was, I figured out the identity of the villain on my own, simply by process of elimination.) At one point I thought the characters were doing something *very* stupid, and I was annoyed, but then I realized that not everything was as it seemed.

For a book that I really struggled with early on, The Librarians ended up being a solid, enjoyable read for me. My grade is a B+.

Best,

Jennie

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Jennie

has been an avid if often frustrated romance reader for the past 15 years. In that time she's read a lot of good romances, a few great ones, and, unfortunately, a whole lot of dreck. Many of her favorite authors (Ivory, Kinsale, Gaffney, Williamson, Ibbotson) have moved onto other genres or produce new books only rarely, so she's had to expand her horizons a bit. Newer authors she enjoys include Julie Ann Long, Megan Hart and J.R. Ward, and she eagerly anticipates each new Sookie Stackhouse novel. Strong prose and characterization go a long way with her, though if they are combined with an unusual plot or setting, all the better. When she's not reading romance she can usually be found reading historical non-fiction.

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