BOOK REVIEW | The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith

Happy Friday, my bookish friends. It’s been a while since I reviewed a book hasn’t it?! I’m sorry, I finally finished my first book for February and it was amazing, despite it taking me over 2 weeks to read it, (I blame work for that.) I don’t want my slow reading to takeaway the fact that it was a brilliant read. This will probably be the only review for Fantasy Feb – boo! But it’s a cracking book that you should all read. 

The Library of the Unwritten (Hell's Library #1) by A.J. Hackwith
Published by Titan Books on October 1, 2019
Genres: Fantasy
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Join the library and raise hell in the first book of a stunning new fantasy series, where books unfinished by their authors reside within the Unwritten Wing of the devil's own library, and restless characters will emerge from out of their pages...
Every book left unfinished by its author is filed away in the Unwritten Wing, a neutral space in Hell presided over by Claire, its head librarian. Along with repairing and organizing books, her job consists of keeping an eye on restless stories whose characters risk materialising and escaping the library.
When a Hero escapes from his book and goes in search of his author, Claire must track and capture him with the help of former muse and current assistant Brevity and nervous demon courier Leto. But what should have been a simple retrieval goes horrifyingly wrong, in a chase that threatens to reshape the boundaries between Heaven, Hell... and Earth.

My Review

When I got the email about The Library of the Unwritten, I knew it was for me. I’m a librarian, this was about librarian managing her own library in Hell called the Unwritten Wing. It’s a no brainer, so I hit that famous button of request and read it straight away. A book a bout libraries and the supernatural, I find to be the book for me. There really isn’t that many out there. Any recommendations, please let me know in the comments.

Claire Hadley, has been the resident librarian to Hell’s library for 30 years. She protects books that are unfinished, where the author themselves don’t really know where to go with it. So they are filed and organised in her library. But by being unfinished, they are left restless, incomplete so sometimes they seek to free themselves from the book.

So when Leto, a demon, a messenger from their boss Lucifer, sends a request for her to collect Hero, a character, the book, that has escaped from her library and has resurfaced in America, talking to his very creator. Whilst Claire is down on Earth, she bumps into an angel of Heaven, with pages of the Devil’s Bible. A book that can span a war between Heaven and Hell. Claire and her friends are in the middle of it!

The book is told in multiple perspectives from Claire, Brevity, the librarian’s assistant and muse, Leto the demon/human, Hero – the character and Ramiel, the angel from Heaven. I really loved getting to know each of these characters. My favourite has to be Brevity, she had this infectious nature about her, she’s creative and inspiring, I guess that’s why she’s a muse. She also has Claire’s back too. (Brev must be a fellow Ravenclaw.)

At first it took a while for me to get into the storyline whilst also getting to know the different characters as well. But about 100 pages in it really kicked up a notch and if my brain wasn’t so tired I wouldn’t be able to put it down. The different realms we travelled like Valhalla and the dead realm, the labyrinth really added that sense of adventure. This book is like Lucifer, meets with The Librarians, & Discovery of Witches. That is basically it in a nutshell. I loved it. What I deeply appreciated was the relationship that we, librarians, have with books. We protect them and organise them. I live for stories about this!

Thank you to Titan Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.