Mini Reviews: The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman & From A High Tower by Mercedes Lackey

Series: The Invisible Library #1
Publisher: Roc
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: June 14, 2016
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | OmniLit*  | iTunes* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Collecting books can be a dangerous prospect in this fun, time-traveling, fantasy adventure from a spectacular debut author.
 
One thing any Librarian will tell you: the truth is much stranger than fiction...

Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all of the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant Kai have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it's already been stolen.

London's underground factions are prepared to fight to the death to find the tome before Irene and Kai do, a problem compounded by the fact that this world is chaos-infested—the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic to run rampant. To make matters worse, Kai is hiding something—secrets that could be just as volatile as the chaos-filled world itself.

Now Irene is caught in a puzzling web of deadly danger, conflicting clues, and sinister secret societies. And failure is not an option—because it isn’t just Irene’s reputation at stake, it’s the nature of reality itself...

FEATURING BONUS MATERIAL: including an interview with the author, a legend from the Library, and more!

Bea's Thoughts:

Oh, the premise, and that elegant cover, for this grabbed me right off. It has elements of the The Librarian book and movie but not quite the same light-heartedness or ability to poke fun at itself. It's a little bit steampunk, a little bit urban fantasy, a little bit young adult, a little bit adventure, and a tiny bit romance. The world building confused me at times, I needed a cheat sheet, but it's thorough and original, with lots of little details. There were lots of twists and a few predictable events but the concept and the characters captured me and kept me reading. Also, dragons! Not nearly enough page time and I have so many questions, but dragons. Happy sigh. The story dragged here and there with an excess of description but I really enjoyed Irene and Kai and want to read more of their adventures. I've already requested book two. :)

Series: Elemental Masters #10
Publisher: DAW Books
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: June 2, 2016 
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | OmniLit*  | iTunes | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

From a High Tower is the newest adventure in Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series.
When a man is caught stealing from a walled garden owned by a strange woman, he bargains away his youngest daughter in return for food for his family. The woman, rumored to be a witch, takes the golden-haired child and locks her away in a high tower. Sixteen years later, Giselle has lived an isolated life, but her adoptive mother has trained her in Air magic, and Giselle must use her new skills to keep herself and her new friends safe.

Bea's Thoughts:

I've been a sporadic reader of this series from the first book, which is still my favorite of the ones I've read. This one was meh. It gave the Rapunzel story some nice twists and updates but the story itself was lacking. First Lackey brings up some serious issues such as poverty, neglect, and rape, but then they got tossed aside with nary a second thought. There are inconsistencies and plot holes and a lack of direction. The story meanders and rambles and other than a theme of growing up and finding family, there's no real point to the story. It's not so much one cohesive story as a collection of anecdotes, loosely related. Having missed some of the middle books in the series, including the one right before this one,there were references that weren't always clear but other readers may not have that problem. "From A High Tower" was mildly interesting but just lacked spark, it never quite grabbed my interest. If you're new to the series, don't start with this one; it's lackluster.