Title: The Library of the Unwritten (Hell’s Library #1)

Author: AJ Hackwith

Publisher: Ace Books 2019

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 384

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Spring TBR; COYER

Many years ago, Claire was named Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing-- a neutral space in Hell where all the stories unfinished by their authors reside. Her job consists mainly of repairing and organizing books, but also of keeping an eye on restless stories that risk materializing as characters 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 when the terrifyingly angelic Ramiel attacks them, convinced that they hold the Devil's Bible. The text of the Devil's Bible is a powerful weapon in the power struggle between Heaven and Hell, so it falls to the librarians to find a book with the power to reshape the boundaries between Heaven, Hell….and Earth.

Loved the premise and the settings, but ultimately, this one fell very flat for me. We are dropped into this plot line and action becomes nonstop from there. Very quickly it become very difficult to keep track of everything that was happened. The book didn’t have any quiet moments to sit and reflect on anything that was happening. On the other side, the characters were hard to really love. I enjoyed Brevity and Leto, but a lot of our time was spent with Claire and Ramiel. Those two were not easy to like or all that interesting of characters. The incredibly unlikeable characters are not really my jam. In the end, I was not all that interested in continuing the series.

Hell’s Library

• #1 The Library of the Unwritten

• #2 The Archive of the Forgotten

• #3 The God of Lost Words

Next up on the TBR pile: