I’ve read all eight novels in Genevieve Colman’s The Invisible Library series. With The Untold Story (2021), the series is going on hiatus. Genevieve Cogman writes in her Acknowledgements, “I do have more ideas concerning Irene, and about the Library and its other inhabitants, and at some point they may get written. My next project is in a completely different area (involving vampires and the Scarlet Pimpernel and a hapless maidservant who’d rather be doing embroidery)… ” (p. 384)
In The Untold Story, Librarian and spy Irene Winter tries to solve some of the major mysteries that have persisted over the story arc of this series. Who set up the Library (and inter dimensional force for stability in the Universe)? Why was the greatest traitor in the Library’s history now trying to make a deal with Irene? Was there a conspiracy at the heart of the Library?
Irene, her lover Kai (who shifts between human and dragon mode), and a Sherlock Holmes clone, Peregrine Vale, attempt to solve the puzzles that have bedeviled them in the preceding volumes of The Invisible Library series.
I’ve enjoyed this series with its quirky plots and characters. If you’re in the mood for mystery, adventure, and fantasy, this is the place to find it. Click on the previous titles to read my reviews. GRADE: B+
The Invisible Library novels:
- Book 1: The Invisible Library London: Pan Macmillan, 2015. ISBN 978-1-4472-5623-6
- Book 2: The Masked City London: Pan Macmillan, 2015. ISBN 978-1-4472-5625-0
- Book 3: The Burning Page London: Pan Macmillan, 2016. ISBN 978-1-4472-5627-4
- Book 4: The Lost Plot London: Pan Macmillan, 2017. ISBN 978-1-5098-3071-8
- Book 5: The Mortal Word London: Pan Macmillan, 2018. ISBN 978-1-5098-3072-5
- Book 6: The Secret Chapter London: Pan Macmillan, 2019. ISBN 978-1-5290-0057-3
- Book 7: The Dark Archive London: Pan Macmillan, 2020. ISBN 978-1-5290-0060-3
- Book 8: The Untold Story London: Pan Macmillan, 2021. ISBN 978-1-5290-0063-4
Well, with that many novels already, I can see how it might be time to turn to something else for a while…or permanently…most cf series can get more than a little tired after such a run, much less those in other fields (at least in crime fiction, one has the central matter of investigation or retribution to work through, as opposed to the less natural focus of nearly every other kind of fiction…well, the game of some importance in sports fiction…).
Eight! I would have guessed three or four. I still haven’t read the first one.