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The Scarlet Pimpernel with Vampires, told from the viewpoint of servant girl, Eleanor, who just happens to look enough like Marie Antoinette to be invited to take part in a daring rescue in revolutionary France with the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Along the way she faces a crazed vampire, is captured by revolutionaries, and begins to wonder who the real villains are. I confess I never read the original (though I’ve seen several movie and TV versions) but this is intriguing enough.
Audiobook – well read by Kristin Atherton.
I've read the last few of these out of order, but no matter, this was still engaging as our heroine, spy/librarian, Irene, together with her dragon-prince lover, Kai, their friend Vale, the great detective, and Irene's new Fae apprentice, Catherine, who suffers from an over-abundance of enthusiasm. The team is up against old enemies. After several kidnap and murder attempts it seems that Lord and Lady Guantes (I might have spelled that incorrectly as I listened rather than read) are back, which is surprising because Irene's pretty sure she killed Lord Guantes previously. Enter Kai's snotty brother, Shan Yuan who is anti-Fae (and anti-Irene as well) which is a problem. Bad situations become worse, until Irene learns a truth that she would rather not have known. Don't start reading this long-running series here. I suggest starting from the beginning with The Invisible Library. You'll not regret it
Irene is given a secret task by the Library's upper echelons, kill Alberich, the Library's arch enemy, who has now been revealed as her father. Other librarians lower down the pecking order are told she has gone rogue, so she only has herself, her lover, Kai, (a dragon in human form), and their friend, Vale, the great detective, to rely on. Irene searches for Alberich, and for her own origin story (because the Library is all about stories). If her father is Alberich, who is her mother? She ends up looking for the origin of the Library, as well, and the Library doesn't like that. Everybody's life is on the line as Irene's search reveals more than she wants to know. Se can't unknow things, however, and this is something she has to see through to the bitter end. This is certainly the end to this particular story arc, though looking at Ms Cogman's website she says it may not necessarily be the end of the series, just the end of this season.
Irene, a librarian of the Secret Library, is sent to acquire a book which could prevent the world she went to school on from falling into chaos. Along with Kai, her dragon prince companion they contact a mysterious fae trader of rare objects, Mr Nemo, and are invited to dinner on his secret Caribbean island where they meet unlikely company. Mr Nemo requires them to bond as a team and steal a painting for him from a 21st Century museum in Vienna. There's a dragon techie, a Fae thief, a gambler, a driver, and the muscle. In return Nemo will give all of them what they want. One complication is Kai's estranged sister – one of the team. This is a heist story with added politics. Somehow I missed Book 5 in this series where a peace treaty was signed between the dragons and the fae, but (having read Books 1 – 4) I was able to pick up the threads. I would suggest that this is not a starting point for this series, but it's well worth reading the earlier books.
This is the fourth instalment in the Invisible Library series, centred on junior librarian, Irene, and her student, Kai, who happens to be a dragon in human form. The Library steers a delicate line of neutrality between the dragons and the fae, careful to take neither one side nor the other in their rivalries and confrontations (not quite all out war) but it seems that there's a problem. If, as suspected, a librarian is helping a dragon to fulfil a quest for a certain book, the fae are not going to like it, and that could endanger every librarian in the multiverse. Irene and Kae are sent to track the miscreant, or, at least, find out what's going on and stop it. Their destination is a version of 1920s America with its gangsters, speakeasys, and cops. It takes Irene and Kai a while to find their feet, find their librarian (Evariste) and try and lose the cops who believe Irene to be a high level gangster from England. There are twists and turns, successes and setbacks and a double climax as Irene and Kai try to prevent two dragons from destroying that world. The characters are well drawn, the action twisty and intriguing and Irene has to do some quick thinking to preserve the Library's neutrality without getting herself, Evariste and Kai killed in the final showdown. Tightly written and exciting. Highly recommended.
